


heart of the wood

by miraclesinapril



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Human Sacrifice, Kinky, Lore - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Size Difference, Size Kink, Some weird shit, Xenophilia, belly bulge, cernunnos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:20:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraclesinapril/pseuds/miraclesinapril
Summary: What do gods do with sacrifices?“You… you came?” He stayed rooted to the stop, defying the temptation to move forward and reach out, make sure what he was seeing was real. “I was…”“You called,” he said a moment later, all traces of mirth gone from his demeanour, “and I answered.”A chill weaved down Jongin’s spine. In between the god’s words sat the heavy truth;you are mine now. You aremyclaim.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 30
Kudos: 227





	heart of the wood

**Author's Note:**

> is that a pun in the title you ask your honour? i take the 5th :p
> 
> alright, HELLO. this was supposed to be posted for halloween and it's currently uhhh *checks calendar* dec-december? OÍCHE SHAMHNA SHONA TO YE!!!
> 
> so before you read, **NOTA BENE, VERY IMPORTANT** : read, and i cannot stress enough, read the tags! make sure you understand what each of them entails before you start reading because some really freaky shit goes down,,, uh, celtic lore ammirite? anyway, i will be taking no complaints about the contents of this fic or how bizarre and out there it is because it's super self-indulgent as always and i've given ample warning.
> 
> -also i cannot say that this fic is entirely true to celtic mythology, i took much liberty!
> 
> -thanks a million to my stunning betas [elle](https://twitter.com/Elle_Ina_) and [jack](https://twitter.com/foxyboys), i appreciate the short notice magic you pulled off and for being so lovely to me in the process, you are absolute stars! ♡ ♡ ♡
> 
> other than that, i hope you enjoy ʕ•ᴥ•ʔﾉ♡

They came in the night, the hour before dawn at the height of nocturnal stupor. 

Imbolc was fast approaching and there had been much to do on the stead and around the village. Of course, none besides Síne had lifted a hand in help, albeit knowing they would all have their palms out when Lughnasadh and the harvest arrived. But Jongin had been glad to do it if it meant he wouldn’t bear the presence of his foster brothers taunting him into a scuffle he had neither interest in nor ability for. When dawn came there would be festivities to prepare for, work to do, work they could not mock him for. 

He’d been snuffed out like a lamp the minute he laid his head down. Admittedly he was a heavy sleeper but the sudden roar of sound approaching their hut should have woken him long before their door was kicked open and a circle of elders and druids surrounded his sleeping body. 

He was seized before he could fully open his eyes, yanked upright by his arms, legs sagging, powerless, like the stuffed toys of children. A clamour of voices talked over each other at once. The din came at him from every direction and only served to disorient him further. By the time he got his bearings—as much as possible given that he was being dragged along like a weightless unfeeling thing—he was hauled out of the hut he’d grown up in and dragged across to the ones higher up on the hill, the sacred ring of the clan’s most learned men.

Clarity hit him with an ox-blow.

“No,” he whispered, “no,” he kicked out, pulled his limbs to himself. They would not let go. 

It was decided. His fate sealed.

“Mercy on us! Blessings on us!” the crowd chanted, trudging up the hill alongside him. Passionate yet indifferent faces peered back at his panic-stricken, desperate visage pleading for an amendment as he was carried away. People he had grown up with, from the day he was tossed to the fences from the horse that rode him into the land of Aes Liath to the young man he’d grown into today, condemned him without a worry. 

Reprieve from the commotion was granted when he was sent headlong into the chambers of Amer. The crowd hadn’t dispersed, he could still hear them outside. They quieted down as they waited for him to re-emerge. Two of Amer’s boys were left to attend him. One of them was speaking as they ripped his sleep breeches off him, the other dead silent. Jongin gave no reply, paid them no heed. 

The chatty one continued in his bright bluebird tone, his voice slicing through the chaos of Jongin’s mind. He didn’t recognise him, he was likely one of Amer’s newer apprentices. He certainly looked the youngest Jongin had seen. An unbidden wave of burning bitterness rose up inside Jongin. Didn’t this child know he was sending to death someone who had only ever dreamed of being in his position? But of course, he could not know. 

The water from the bucket they showered over his head was warm. He didn’t want to think about how long ago they had decided his fate but it was impossible to keep out of his mind. There were so many ways to die and Jongin was going to go with the knife of betrayal twisted deep in his gut. It was only a matter of time before Father did something to rid himself of the blemish in Jongin’s form but the most radical reparation that had crossed Jongin’s mind was Father getting him outlawed, not put to death. 

Despite the stony silence of the older attendant boy, he was gentle on Jongin’s skin, careful as he washed and rubbed and rinsed out. For all it was worth, Jongin was venerated now. He didn’t belong to their world anymore. Whatever grievances they had with or about him, they would have to let go for bad feelings towards a Chosen One could sully the rite. But what did their respect count for now? What use did Jongin have for it? His life was going to end. All his aspirations on the wind like dust. 

They rubbed him down with fragrant oils, put some in his hair, shined his nails and finally slipped the pristine white tunic over his head. Then they sent him out into the woods where ritual was already underway, where they would only strip him of the cloth and bathe him in the warm blood of a freshly slaughtered heifer as his mother, sister and grandmother watched in stony silence and repressed tears. 

  
  


☽*☾

  
  


The woods spoke. It spoke in the Old Language, the intrinsic one that did not need words, did not need utterance, or even understanding. Only feeling, pure, intrinsic and unmistakable, in the depth of his being. It hissed and shook like rattlesnakes, it moaned, it cried, it whined, it shrieked. The leaves rustled furiously as though the trees were shaking all their barked limbs and the entire copse of woods was trembling, shaking, the earth rolling. There were drums, far in the distance, as the ritual dances continued, as the prayers were sang and screamed in circles. There were drums, in his chest, the beat of his heart, racing, galloping, horses on the tracks, horses trodding on the dirt, beastly and huge, riding for his head. 

Screeching skeletal horses, they were the ride of the goddess and her ghastly retinue. It was said that her arrival was heard as far as the ocean, from the hills of Armagh, to the peaks of Knockboy. Jongin was inclined to buy it. The last sacrifice to the Morrigán had been when he was a little boy. 

All the smallest children had been sent to sleep in the biggest hut of the tuath, expected to stay there throughout the night under the vigil of an elderly minder. Jongin was not sure how they expected them to get a wink of sleep. The loud trills and chants and yodels of all that were old enough to partake in the ritual could be heard for miles. Any stranger out about at this time as far as three kingdoms down in each direction would surely have sought immediate shelter. The other children were sound asleep, though. Perhaps there was something in their supper. Why could ongin not fall into sweet oblivion like them?

He counted the straws in each patch on the ceiling, forcing his mind away from the present and deep into a recess where all the tales Ma and Maimeó told over hot meals resided. His favourite one was the one Ma told every Yule, when the frost froze the ground and nightfall fell early and deep, and the smell of firewood and smoke pervaded the air for as long as the eye could see.

The story was about a little boy who got lost in a lush forest. The boy tried to find his way out, searching for a way back home for days until he was exhausted, parched and scared, and could no longer move an inch. He collapsed on the ground and wanted to rest. Suddenly he heard the growling and snarling of wolves who surrounded him and intended to devour him. The boy thought he was going to die, that the wolves would tear him limb from limb. 

They inched closer, muzzles bared, jaws snapping, salivating like water in a well. Mean golden eyes, pupils black and soulless as night, their horrifying sight filled the boy with fright. He tried to get up but there was no strength left in his body to escape or defend himself so he closed his eyes and prayed softly to the gods like his mother taught him, all of them, hoping someone would listen, someone would answer. As the first wolf nipped at his leg in mock, the boy thought all was lost. He would be carcass soon, a feast for the foxes and crows. 

Lost in prayer, the boy did no notice that the forest had suddenly hushed and there was nothing to be heard, not the birdsong, not the squirrel chirps and least of all the growling of the hungry predators about to devour him. Standing over him was a being of lush green, a walking, towering tree covered in every plant and bug and bird of the forest, the Lord of the Wood himself. 

The forest god had saved the boy and the boy pledged himself to him. 

Jongin had been taken out of the comfort of his head and brought back to the hut by the sudden roaring and thundering that drowned out the raucous sounds of the ongoing rite. Furious whinnies broke the night, hooves battered the fabric of time like the coming of End of Days itself. The piercing of several banshee screeches contended with all the clamour. The knell of death pricked involuntary tears in Jongin’s eyes. He would never forget those sounds. He did not need to be told. 

The Old Language. The Morrigán had arrived for her claim. 

There was no Lord of the Wood now. There wouldn’t be for Jongin. He was sacrificed. She would come collect. What did gods do with sacrifices? Would he die? Then what? Would he cease to exist like he never did in the first place? Or be taken to the Other World? With Her? 

It was tradition for many of the boys to go off and try to find the Other World once they reached Bearding. Everyone said it was a place of beauty, immortality, pleasures. Jongin wasn’t sure though. It seemed foolish. How could a place with all the gods, with their powers and pride, be peaceful and bright and nothing else? 

There was more to it than that. Had Jongin possessed edacious inclinations for quest, like was so revered and expected of him besides bloodlust, he might have gone to find out himself. That was not the path he sought, though, and he had made his peace with that. Evidently he was here tonight because the others could not. 

The blood was drying on his skin. It itched and flaked. There was a fire lit between the crimson layer and his skin. How badly he wanted to wash it off. If the goddess did not arrive soon, others would. Nocturnal beasts would scent him out. With or without the Morrigán he had been sentenced to see what lay beyond death. 

The wood was speaking louder and louder. The crescendo was coming, Jongin could feel it in the roots of his teeth, in the bones of his ribs. When it broke, she would be here. His ears rang and his skull ached but his eyes were dry. There was nothing left to cry. 

It did not mean he was not terrified. Gods, he couldn’t tell if the ground was _really_ shifting or all that trembling was just him. Either way the lengths of rope binding him to the trees twisted and wrestled with the harsh jerks of his body.

How would she appear to him? He heard of how she came to heroes and saviours and champions of battle and war; magnificent, ethereal and divine. How she touched them with her blade and bestowed even more blessings and victories on them. He heard, too, how she appeared to those fated to poor deaths. Gruesome, heart stopping, vile. Stricken, terrorised and punished before she laid them to rest. 

Jongin was neither, though. A sacrifice. Where did he fall? 

No one had told him much about that. 

The thundering did not cease and it took some time to register that it was the blood rushing in his own ears that he was hearing. High up near the first bough of an old elm in the darkness ahead of him, two yellow spots peered at him. He strained to see but he could not make out what it was. The ruckus of the rite was still going so it was dubious that anyone had left to come to him. Had the goddess finally come? Perfect stillness overcame him. His breath was sundered somewhere between his lungs, throat and the spiralling terror that wrapped around his lungs, his rib cage, between the joints of his spine. 

The yellow spots drew closer and closer until he could make out two unblinking amber eyes observing him from the shadows. Dry rustling of leaves grew, like a granary being shaken insistently and a phantom wind started and danced in visible swirls before him like a living thing. 

The amber eyes stepped out of the shadows, revealing a towering figure lurking by the trees. The head they were attached to seemed quite odd, deformed, bent to an unnatural degree. Something… something protruded from its head. Horns. No, not quite. Antlers—like those of a stag—if the stag had a human-resembling torso and was a mammoth of its kind. The figure’s gait was odd as it made its way to Jongin, a trundling saunter that was measured. And as it stood before Jongin, cloven hooves that were its feet came into view, accompanied by a swarm of animals crawling and slithering on either side like a fauna entourage that had crawled from the deepest, darkest hell. 

Jongin stared at the ground, feeling in the Old Language that looking up and into those unnatural eyes, meant certain death. Ma said everyone was a descendant of the Divine Tuatha, that everyone had a trace of their magic in their blood. Some had the Rings around their irises to herald their Sight but everyone else had something too; a portal to the other side through the physical soul of the human; the eyes. 

Ma said that each and every person had a bit of magic to enrich the world with and it was bestowed through their eyes, be it beauty, wit, strength, knowledge, or what she claimed was his special forte, warmth. 

Jongin’s heart of hearts told him that he would find nothing but cold hell in those eyes if he looked in them this close. The goddess did not come as beautiful or bright, she had come as Death and it was Jongin’s time of demise. 

“You…” the figure croaked. It spoke like the wind on nights it tore through the branches and the boughs in a storm, a shrieking ancient rumble. 

Jongin squeezed his eyes closed. _Let it be quick._

“You.” the voice said, clearer, louder, chilling. 

The snakes sang and the wind groaned and the leaves scratched. 

The breath of the figure over him was warm, the only source of heat in the sudden freezing night. There was a pause. The Reaper’s golden eyes boring into him was tangible on his skin. 

Metal oozed into Jongin’s spine and took up where fear once was. He would not go cowering. He would not go in fear. The honour of being sacrificed was his whether he liked it or not. A warrior was not the only one who could lead a brave life. 

He raised his head. 

And almost instantly regretted doing so. 

Before him stood not a man but an imitation of one with a stag’s gleaming, naked, silver skull for a head. Shadows danced around him and the wind continued to groan in hoarse moans. 

“Release him.” was the last thing Jongin heard before he passed out. 

  
  


☽*☾

Jongin came to with the steady gaze of unsettling beady eyes fixed on him. They glinted like obsidian caught in the sun’s glare. Was he staring at Death now? There was something unbridled in those eyes… he had died, hadn’t he? The goddess… 

He rose abruptly, prompting a heavy pelt to slip off his naked, blood-coated body. 

A fire blazed in the centre of the hut…? Enclosure…? Its warmth caressed Jongin’s bare skin. The structure comprised of twined branches for walls, thick and coiled like the plaits Ma used to weave Síne’s hair into. Bark was bared at places but a layer of dense emerald leaves shrouded most of it. The roof was shaped in the familiar conical of roundhouses, except that too was shaped with leaves and thick tendrils, a glowing green canopy in the low light of the fire. 

Beady eyes slithered into view before Jongin could continue examining the strange surroundings he’d awoken in. He froze. 

The serpent was enormous, long and thick, with scales black as a raven’s plumage. On its head rested a crown the creamy shade of a ram’s horns, incurved and grooved with deep crescents. It regarded Jongin with perturbing intelligence, as though it would open its mouth and converse with him in words.

He stayed very still, undaring to breath, to move a fraction of a muscle. There were very few snakes in these lands, if at all, and the only one he has dealt with in his entire life was a wee thing he could pick up by the tail and hurl into a nearby stream. There was no chance in the world that he was going to wrestle that thing, much less pick it up. Why was it not slithering forth with its venomous fangs? Why was it staring at Jongin so intently, for an animal with poor sight? 

Where was he? Who had brought him here? When would they return? 

The serpent shifted and Jongin let out an involuntary gasp. It didn’t come towards him, though. It moved back, eyes never leaving him, while it reversed to behind the fire, as if it sensed Jongin’s fear and was trying to soothe him. 

There was no soothing until that creature was out of his presence. 

The serpent titled its head. Then slowly, it lowered itself until it was a mere dark blip through the tall flames of the fire. Occasionally when a gust of breeze blew in through the branch walls and the flames leaned, Jongin caught a glimpse of the obsidian coil lying behind it, eyes still trained on him. 

It was no ordinary snake, that much was clear. Perhaps it had been assigned to guard him. What would happen if he tried to leave? Would it kill it him with one bite from the undoubted menace it was concealing in its jaw? Or wrap its strong body around him and squeeze until no life remained in him? A shiver went down Jongin’s body and he pulled the pelt higher, disappearing into it. 

And yet no matter how much he tried to forget the existence of the serpent and pointedly avoided looking in its direction, it was impossible to not feel its presence. Its power came to Jongin across the room in waves, in powerful echoes like a shout at the base of a steep sided hollow valley. 

It was getting warm under the heavy pelt and the crackling warmth but he would no sooner leave himself exposed to that thing than throw himself into the fire. 

Beneath the crackling and the faint wind outside he picked up on another sound, something that remotely imbued the feeling of home. He listened for a little while longer until he placed it. Aunt Graine’s crannog. He’d lain awake for as long as he could whenever they visited so he could listen to the sound of the lake beneath them moving in slow ripples, a precarious task since it was tranquilizing as much as it was pleasant. 

There was water nearby, then. He longed for it, he longed to take a dip, to cool the rising flush of his body and to cleanse himself of the remnants of the nightmare rite. He couldn’t hear a whisper of his people or life at all and it gave him the disturbing inkling that he was far from home. 

Lost in memories of the lonely crannog out by a forgotten lake that his aunt’s family inhabited, Jongin did not hear the rustle of approach outside until a section of the wall ahead swung open in the form of a door and a figure folded itself in two to enter. 

Despite the preternatural serpent, he’d clung to the hope that there was sanity to his situation, that perhaps some odd fellow unfamiliar with their traditions had saved him in the woods and the rest of it had been a feverish dream. 

There was no hope of thinking that now, not with what had joined them. 

The strange towering creature from earlier stood beside the fire, stag skull replaced with a stag head shaped in human flesh, tan like crisp dried grains and jarring on a high-angled, sharply-jutted face devoid of animal fur. He was tall, taller than Jongin who had been quite small among the tribe, tall for their people, tall as the hut they were in with his horns pressing into the leaf-thatched roof. If nothing else identified him as the ghastly figure from before Jongin had lost consciousness, those eyes would do it. Yellow and bright like honey caught in a pouring of sunlight, they glowed in the dark hollow sockets of his head, trained on Jongin with the same preternatural scrutiny of the serpent. 

His hair was light and long and hung in unkempt tangles. The biggest torc Jongin had ever seen, bigger than his father’s, bigger than the one of the King in the High Seat, rested on the wide and robust—it _must_ be, for him to be able to carry that and not be dragged to the ground by his throat—plane of his chest. Power and authority rolled off him in even greater waves than it did the serpent, dark and broiling and demanding, seeping into Jongin’s seated knees and making them quiver as if every fibre of them had been constructed of lard and dung _._

He was clothed in tatters of lichen, moss and leaves, sticking to his tan skin—that carried a pallored hue—like a garment of water. Jongin followed the strange anatomy of his lower half, the way his legs buckled from the knees down, at the same angle the hind calves of a fallow or stag’s would. His feet were still cloven hooves, the fire making their obsidian lambent as if some flames were caught inside their gleaming surfaces. But the attention, captivation, came to be caught and bound by the third extremity between the creature’s thighs, where the humble attire of forest fabric did not extend to; the unsettlingly large phallus semi-erect between those wide, pulsing thighs. 

Jongin stared and sputtered, averted his gaze, got drawn back in his inspection and sputtered again, until he was incoherent in his attempt to not swallow his tongue, to make sense of what this was without finalizing himself as a fool. 

The creature did not say a word, only let him take him in calmly, as if he had all the time in the world to witness Jongin’s absorption of his appearance. The serpent had glided to his side, standing tall and straight, floating straight by the creature’s hips, its own black bulky body gathered behind it. 

“You slept long.” the creature said at last. 

“Who are you?” 

Surprise crossed his face. Ignoring Jongin’s question, he strode forward. He brought the shadows and darkness with him, blotting out Jongin’s vision from foresight to periphery, doing nothing to soothe the spell of sheer terror suddenly cast on him. 

Jongin scrambled back, though there was nowhere to go. He scrambled sideways along the wall but that did not deter the creature, he followed with dogged nonchalance. He reached out for the pelt and Jongin clung to it like his soul was woven into the thing. The whimper he had been suppressing came out in a short high pitched scream when his squirming led him around the fire, close to the serpent, way too close to his side. 

He scanned the ground, a branch, a splinter, something, anything he could use to fend off the beasts crowding him in. There was nothing. Realization sunk in like a stone, there was little he could against this horned creature even if he had been trained to fight all his life. 

The creature paused, something seeming to dawn. 

“You are afraid.” he stated in that rich ancient scratch. Again, Jongin glimpsed that surprise. But what about this entire situation did not warrant steep intrinsic fear?

“Why are you afraid, little one?” But he didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Come with me.” He turned on his heel and strode out. 

He bent through the doorway and disappeared. Jongin stared after him. Did the creature really expect him to follow? It was not a command, but with the force emanating from him, Jongin did not doubt the creature could make him do his bidding without lifting a finger. And if he wanted Jongin dead, he would be dead. 

_There are worse things than death,_ Ma’s voice crept into his head. Rising, he ignored it. What choice did he have? Maybe he could wring a few answers from him. 

As he tumbled out, he realised the serpent had disappeared. The horned creature was waiting a few paces from the hut. He seemed even larger outside. Rather unwise, Jongin forgot his existence for a few bewildered moments. 

Last Jongin remembered, the woods were a desolate copse of bare spindly branches, awaiting the blessed bloom of Imbolc. The season did not seem to apply to this portion of the woods, wherever it was where the hut was located. It was lush and viridescent as if it were the thick of Bealtaine, leafy trees with low hanging branches, covered in rich green fungi, shockingly stark against the rest of the landscape further down which was spindly and barren like phantoms of former trees. 

The hut was built into the sides of a cluster of huge trees, nestled in from all angles. Strings hung from branches above, dangling over the entrance and out into the rest of the forest, marking a path to the enshrouded abode. Bits and pieces were tied to the strings; twigs, shiny coins, blocks of wax, chalices, a chipped ceramic flagon, bundles of leaves tied together in beautiful russets and ambers, flower wreaths, knives, bones, tufts of fur, animal skulls. Jongin scanned them one by one, head aching as he kept looking, something niggling at the back of his mind like an unsatisfiable itch. 

Then his lungs shrunk, he flushed hot and cold, paralysed, all at once. 

Right in front of him, he’d missed it, too busy gazing far ahead and above. 

A bundle of bones hung right before him, thin bird bones shined to a gleam of whiteness and assembled with knots of coarse string to form miniature horns. Antler horns. He was certain because he had made it. That one and the several others dotted around them, some carved of wood, hanging close together to form their own constellation of horns. 

“Hello.” Said the creature with a small smile when Jongin’s gaze swung back to him. The creature, the god. The Lord of the Wood. 

Jongin could not bring himself to speak. His mouth stayed shut as if he had never formed words before and did not know how to. His thoughts ran into each other in an indecipherable stream until a single one became prominent. 

_It could not be._

His prayers for rescue had been a far fetched wish and he’d known it, deep down beneath the desperation. He had entertained the hope but never the reality of it actually happening because his fate had been sealed. Yet the god he had devoted much of his reverence was standing right before him.

How?

“You called.” The god said. It took a moment for Jongin to realise he asked aloud. “You called.” the god repeated, sounding more thoughtful and if Jongin didn’t know any better, he would say confused. 

“You… you came?” He stayed rooted to the stop, defying the temptation to move forward and reach out, make sure what he was seeing was real. “I was…”

“For Morrigán, yes.” The god completed for Jongin after he trailed off in confusion and resurfacing fear. A faint smile tugged wider at the god’s lips and Jongin grew even more bemused. 

“Then why—won’t she—how do—“

“You are wondering what will happen when she goes there and finds her sacrifice missing.” 

Jongin nodded, his throat still feeling a little dry. 

“Is it not her own fault for being late to her own claiming?” The forest god asked, hints of amusement still present on his unsettling visage. “You called,” he said a moment later, all traces of mirth gone from his demeanour, “and I answered.” 

A chill weaved down Jongin’s spine. In between the god’s words sat the heavy truth; _you are mine now. You are_ my _claim_ . 

Jongin looked away from the imposing creature of a god, his eyes dragging to the bird-bone antlers again. How many had he made over the years? Three, at least, for every Imbolc that passed, of that he was certain. And when he could not set aside time to piece together something of his own making, he had always scavenged for a carcass to rip bones from, cleaning and wiping them down with the floral fragrance Ma and Síne put in their hair. 

And if not that, he made nosegays from what he could find, linger a second or two as he said his prayers and left his offerings on the altar by the waterfall. They had always been gone by the time he came back and sometimes Jongin had chalked it up to the wind displacing them, or an animal or the water in the pool flooding over. Some element of the forest or nature. 

And if he let himself believe that his offerings had been accepted, he could never imagine what use the Lord of the Wood had for them. After all, he and Loch had sometimes found their offerings at the base of the pool or buried shallowly in the mud of the banks but they and Jongin left them anyway. Jongin’s offerings were probably carried away by the wind or were too small to be refound in the waterfall. 

Jongin had a hunch that he was looking at every offering that had been made to the god, his own crafts staring back, and it triggered a succession of flutters inside him that made his breath come quicker. 

“A curious young thing you were, the first time you brought me one of these.” 

The words made Jongin startle as if he had been slammed by a boar.

“You saw me?” 

“Of course.” He smiled, eyes dancing in amber flames. “Come,” he said, before Jongin could ask any of the million questions spinning his head. “We must purify you.” 

“Okay,” he said and took a step towards the outreached hand of the forest god. He stumbled. Before he could open his eyes and find himself sprawled on the ground, the god was in his face, holding him up, lifting him into his arms. 

“Oh.” Jongin blinked stupidly. 

“You were tied for quite a while. Morrigán is at great fault if you ask me.” The god said humorously. “I will not let her hear the end of this.” He started forward, Jongin weighing in his arms as if he were little more than one of those twigs tied to the strings. He walked measuredly without looking ahead, not letting his eyes stray from Jongin for a moment and Jongin was once again left to feel the power of the creature whose hold he was captured in echo through his bones. 

“I don’t think she is to blame. Perhaps she expected her sacrifice to stay as it was supposed to be.” Jongin’s mouth ran ahead of him, apparently stupefied beyond reproach by being in the arms of a god. 

“Yes, well if _you_ were her sacrifice then she should have hurried, hm?” the god laughed and it felt like the entire forest had let out a sigh in the note of a nightingale. Jongin really liked the sound. 

“I should not have been.” Jongin said, a little quieter. “I am not worthy.” 

“Is that what you were told?” The god paused, peering down at Jongin with eyes that had suddenly diminished in flame and looked like crackling coolness. 

“It is the truth.” 

“Whose truth?” 

“They are ri—”

“Hush,” the god shook his head, holding Jongin closer against a firm chest carpeted with forest. 

Jongin did, under that amber gaze that was warming again. He wondered, quite belatedly, what the god meant by ‘purify’. 

“Am I dead?” he blurted. 

“Do you feel dead?” the god raised a disconcerting brow. 

Jongin flushed, shaking his head, “Are we… are we still in—“

“Your world.” 

Jongin hesitantly brought himself to ask, “Am I going to die?” 

“Do you wish to?” He waited for Jongin’s dissent, “Then you won’t, little one. No harm will come to you.” 

The reassurance brought a lull with it, made him want to close his eyes and burrow into the god’s chest. He did not dare, though. He stayed taut as a branch. 

A beat of silence later, the god mused with slight traces of the previous puzzlement, “You invoked my protection,” he stared at Jongin with intense fascination. “How did you awaken me? I—” he leaned down, _sniffed_ the air and shook his horned head, “—there is nothing. You _are_ human. Powerful yes, but human. Should not be...” he rumbled, deep and heavy, voice pressing down into Jongin’s conscious like nightingales and rattlesnakes. 

“Powerful?” Jongin asked, brows furrowed, _“Awaken?”_

The god only shook his head and, for the first time, raised his eyes. 

Jongin knew not to enquire any more. The moon’s shine was so strong it lit the night and made navigation as easy as day. The air tasted like that found in the mountains up where he accompanied Loch on his shepherding days, crisp, a cleansing bite. The barren branches mapped the black sky like skeletal webs. The epiphany hit Jongin as he stole a glance downwards. There were no low hanging branches, the Lord of the Wood was towering among the great trees. 

He bit down the nibbling urge to ask more, to know more. He picked up on something that made it easier to, something he’d heard from the hut. The babble and rush of water, drowning out all other sounds the closer they got. This part of the forest was recognisable to him. He had been here more times than he could count. Not far from home then. The grass beneath them squelched with moisture under the god’s feet. The water got louder and louder, a roar that could only be a waterfall.

They came up on the shore of the plunge pool with a bed of jagged rocks sitting on its edge. Beyond those was a slab of even rock that Jongin was all too familiar with. The Lord’s altar. 

The god set him down on a medium sized slab in the jagged assemblage, one with the flattest surface. The world tipped when the god let go but he clasped Jongin’s shoulder as soon as he started to lean forward, on his way to kissing the rocks. 

“Would you like me to lay you down instead?” he studied Jongin tentatively as he held him steady, like any more strength might crush his delicate human bones. Perhaps it would. 

Perhaps embarrassment would take him first. In this position, seated on the fairly tall slab, he was brought distressingly close to the god’s loin. His unclothed loin. With his unclothed semi-hard cock. 

“What are you doing?” Jongin stammered, gaze flitting everywhere except in front of him. 

“The pool mud will heal you.”

“Oh. All right.” if the god knew where his thoughts were or why he was acting strangely, he did not show it. 

“I know modesty is a notion among your people. You may do it yourself.” the god gestured to the water. 

Jongin considered it. He had strolled naked in these forests before, he had stood nude in the heart of it, in the midst of rituals held in the forest god’s name. The being before him was a warden of virility and Jongin was sure nudity was not a notion to be diffident about to him, as evidenced by his apparent state. 

Besides, there was the minor fact that he was a god and could take whatever he desired from Jongin, compel him to do whatever he wished. But Jongin, from the druids’ teachings, gleaned that the Lord of the Wood was not of that temperament, and that he was benevolent to those who did not transgress. 

“I will turn away now.” the god informed him. 

“No!” the god froze at Jongin’s protest, “I,” he cleared his throat, lowered his voice, a flush creeping into his cheeks, “no it’s alright. You… you can do it.” 

The god nodded, lips lifting. Something warm, primal, coursed through Jongin at having pleased this powerful being. 

His hands slowly left Jongin’s shoulders, as if apprehensive Jongin would fall over the minute he was not supported but Jongin fought to keep himself upright, even as his limbs wanted nothing more than to topple to the ground and retract into themselves like a snail into its shell. 

The god walked to the shore of the pool and gouged out handfuls of mud. He returned before Jongin, his mouth moving in whispers too faint to hear but Jongin had the inkling it might have been a spell. 

“I thought you said the mud was magical.” 

“Those are not the words I spoke,” the god looked at him, slightly amused, “but if you are curious, I am only enhancing the remedial powers it already possesses.” he rubbed the muck between tremendous palms, “This may be a little cold.” 

Jongin’s body went taut and then broke as a shiver spasmed through him at the uncomfortable sensation of the cool, cloying mud being smeared on him. Hissing, he tried to keep still as the god spread it evenly over the sore, bloodied skin. The forest god did not voice his apology but his hands roamed gently and those flames in his eyes fanned in a sympathetic dance as he applied the treatment, fast but careful. Despite the discomfort of it, Jongin could feel the healing perforate his chest, spread like roots of an old tree and dull the aches he hadn’t even known were there, repairing the strains and wears of being stretched and pitched like a human scarecrow. 

The undivided attention crawled beneath Jongin’s skin and created a buzz that made it hard to remain steady. Despite the torrent of abuse from his foster brothers, he’d been used to blending in the shadows, remaining hidden in plain sight, being spoken over when he opened his mouth and his verbal contributions at gatherings treated like little more than inconvenient heifer moans. It never got any less surprising when someone _saw_ him instead of right through him. 

“Where’s this place?” Jongin said, his voice startling the peace of the gushing waterfall that had come to soothe his ears. “I’ve—it _looks_ identical to the one I know but it’s a little...” 

“Different? Yes. I have many secret places, little wilding.” he spread the mud to Jongin’s neck, to his throat, caressed in little growing circles, over Jongin’s Adam apple, even as he swallowed, even as his heart began to hammer and he held in his breath. “Humans are intrusive creatures, no? And they do love to search for me.” 

“So it’s concealed?” Jongin inquired, wincing as the god slowly lifted his arms, “With magic?” his teeth dug into his lips as he clamped down on them, willfully ignoring the leaning closer of the god. His chest groaned at the stretch as the god bedaubed the inside of his arms, along his flank. Tendons in Jongin’s back and abdomen screaming for him to cease. He tried to hold it back but a whimper escaped and the god halted.

“That won’t do, you can let down your arms, Jongin.” He took Jongin’s hands and lowered them back down to his lap. “With magic yes, but the Clairvoyant can see it. Or find it if it is their will.” he explained, kneeling down. “But often the ones with a gift have good enough heads on their shoulders to know not to trespass.” 

His gaze lingered on Jongin’s face, though his hands were busy massaging him with mud, smoothing over his thighs, nudging between them in soft permission. Flushed, Jongin parted them. 

“How do you know my name?” 

“How do you know mine?” 

Jongin’s brows furrowed, mouth opening and closing. How…? He glanced back at the god, saw him staring back with what can only be a playful glow. Jongin laughed despite himself, surprised that the god would have a sense of humour but not at all displeased. 

“You have many names.” he commented, recalling the numerous titles he desperately prayed to at various times in his life. 

“I do.” 

“You…” Jongin began, hesitant and testing the waters, “are a mouthful to invoke.” Would the god find him insolent or punish him for returning the raillery? 

But the forest god only smiled, his eyes glowing brighter, and said with a chuckle, “I cannot stop those who wish to title me. Each man’s time is his own.” he lifted a broad shoulder in a shrug, as if he weren’t still caressing the inside of Jongin’s thigh. 

“Which do you prefer to be called by?” he asked in a rush, willing his focus into staying on the god’s face and not what he was doing with his hands on Jongin’s body (that was on the verge of betraying him). 

“Though few know it,” the god started in a murmur, intense on his task and almost pulling a whimper from Jongin as he strayed too close to his groin, “there is a name I prefer above all. The one I was called by when I first came into existence.” 

Jongin stilled at that, cold, creeping arousal and fading aches forgotten. “You would tell me?” his chest tightened, something pulling inside him, a strange sensation he always used to get when he came by this waterfall, as if a string inside his ribcage was being tugged on. 

“Hmm.” the gods eyes flitted to Jongin’s and then away in nebulous pensiveness. “Again, those are also not words that I spoke, little one.” 

“I am not little, you know. I have nineteen summers on me.” Jongin said with feeling.

“And how many do you think I have?” asked the god as he stood and went around the rock to Jongin’s back. 

“I’m not quite sure. Are you younger or older than the Dagda?” 

To Jongin’s startlement, the god made a sound that resembled sputtering. 

“The Dagda!” the god’s vehement indignation was palpable, “The Dagda!” he repeated and Jongin could not pin why he could envision the god shaking his head furiously. He could not help but giggle, relaxation loosening his limbs and joints, putting the notion into his head of soaring into the clouds. 

“What happens now?” 

“You will wash this off in the pool. You will eat. You will sleep.” 

“My lord—”

“Full restoration cannot occur without sleep, little one.” 

_“After._ What about after?” Jongin pressed, his caution frayed at the seams by the uncertainty and unanswered curiosity he had been trying to suppress. Was it possible that the god was only buttering him up for a worse fate, fattening him up like the proverbial and literal sacrificial lamb he was? It was. It most certainly was and regardless of the serenity and warmth condensing inside him, breeding trust for this deity he so wholly revered, Jongin knew he could not be sure, could not be so trusting, so naive. He had no power here. He never had, but the stakes were different here. And he was nothing, that much had not changed. 

“No harm will come to you.” the god said softly, an eerie response to Jongin’s muted distress. A buzz entered Jongin’s mind, though. Far from eerie, far from distress. Wind and sunlight spread through his veins, silvery birdsong wrapped around his form. Panic and worry bumped to the back of his mind until they no longer existed. 

No harm would come to him. 

He let the Lord of the Wood pick him up and carry him into the water. He let him wash off the soil, clinging to the god’s waist, hard cock pressed to his thigh. He let him carry him back the way they came, limbs heavy and sleep calling. He let him put him down on the heavy pelt, set another atop him, tucked to his chin. He felt the hair being brushed from his face and saw flames and serpent as he dozed off to deep sleep. 

  
  


☽*☾

Jongin came to with the steady gaze of unsettling beady eyes fixed on him. They glinted like obsidian caught in the sun’s glare. Was he staring at Death now? There was something unbridled in those eyes… he had died, hadn’t he? The goddess… 

Beady eyes slithered closer, its enormous pulsing body following suit. It regarded Jongin with perturbing intelligence that required no words. 

He stayed very still, undaring to breath, to move a fraction of a muscle. Blood rushed in the silence, in his ears, in his vessels. He was warmer than warm, heat that had nothing to do with the fire burning in the centre of the hut. It vacillated inside him with a need that brought desperation pricking about his eyes, wriggling inside him like a restless tickle. 

The intensity in the serpent’s scrutiny sowed doubt in Jongin’s sanity, whether or not he was bordering delusion, hallucination. Did sentient snakes exist? 

The serpent advanced and Jongin watched it move, trained on the shifting and cording of its voluminous body. He opened his mouth but strangely there was no sound awaiting, no blood curdling scream gathering in his throat like mist, no shattering cry for help waiting to be set loose. The fear was absent, the caution that would make him scramble away at any other time nonexistent as if he’d been raised in a pit of snakes. In fact he marvelled at the warped comfort pervading his skin, like waves of heat from the fire except permeating him beyond the pores, beyond the bone, beyond the marrow, into the very chamber of his core and condensing in tight curls of hot scorching _something._

When the serpent was out of his sight, Jongin did not crane or turn his neck and when he felt the pelt shift and expose coolness to his naked form, he did not move. The itch, the hot scorching _something_ kept him down, stroked his mind with familiar wind and song that should not have been familiar, so potent he could taste the words on his mouth, _no harm, no harm, no harm, little one._

Coarse scale made contact with his calf, moved along the dip in his knee, scratched along the back of his bare thigh and Jongin shivered hard. He heard a deep rumble, reverberations that reiterated the same needy feeling wrapped up in security. He heard himself when the diamond head touched between his leg, nudged the intimate part that lay aching there. He heard himself louder when a forked tongue swept along his clenching pucker before prying in between. And his whimper was loud as day when the diamond head started to push in, horns flattened back like dog ears, pressing pressing pressing for entrance which Jongin raised his hips to grant, so full, filled and plugged to point he couldn’t draw breath without feeling it at his throat. 

Relief swamped him when the body slithered deeper in one effortless push, his walls giving easy, giving slick and embracing as the serpent withdrew, pushed forward, withdrew, pushed forward, until Jongin was rocking his hips and forcing it further desperately. The tail of the serpent curled around his thigh, tighter and tighter, cutting his blood flow in a divine squeeze that made him clench harder. He clutched at the pelt beneath him, seeing flames beneath his sealed eyes, tasting rapture that refused to be tamed, yet. 

He caught the tail of that rapture when the serpent surged forward inside him and prodded its forked tongue against a dense bundle of sensations that choked him on a scream, singed the workings of his brain until his mouth fell open and he bubbled with drool. 

And when that head lifted and parted its own mouth, sunk fangs into that dense bundle of feeling, Jongin screamed and writhed, saw white and saw blazing amber and writhed even harder until his bones vibrated, ready to break out of his skin and snap themselves in sharp splintering pleasure. 

He shook and shook as the serpent licked, unmerciful in its delivery of ecstasy, forcing incoherent tears and ragged prayers in an endless mantra from Jongin’s uncoordinated, beyond addled conscious. 

He did not register the serpent remove itself, _if_ it removed itself, too occupied with the echoes of bliss that kept coming as if it had no end and perhaps it did not because he ebbed into oblivion before he felt the pleasure stop. 

  
  


☽*☾

Jongin came to with the steady gaze of unsettling beady eyes fixed on him. They glinted like obsidian caught in the sun’s glare. Beside them were an amber pair, offset by the flickering flames. The god turned a sizable venison shoulder over the fire, in deep contemplation. Spices wafted from the fire and a relatively loud rumble rocked Jongin’s stomach. 

“Come eat.” 

Jongin started, flailing upright as if caught in a crime. It turned out to be a mortifying mistake. The pelt beneath him was slick, his whole groin area, thighs and stomach slick. His fingers came away sticky when he testily dragged them over his skin, hoping fervently that it was just miraculous water that had stained him and the fabric. He brought the pelt back over his body hastily, embarrassment flushing him red and unbearably hot. 

“The Season awaits.” 

“What?” he paused mid frantic attempts of using the cover to wipe himself clean. 

“Come eat.” The god repeated, as if he had not spoken. 

He waited for permission but it never came. Instead the god waved a hand over Jongin’s crotch and the stickiness disappeared without trace. Then he reached for the venison while still over the fire and tore into it. He dropped the pieces in Jongin’s palms and gratefully Jongin ate. His stomach rumbled in riot and relief and the embarrassment that would have accompanied was doused by the pleased smile the god gave. The meat was firm and tasted of chervil, sage and smoke. Jongin accepted the larger cuts with ravenous enthusiasm. He tried to slow down but last time he ate was a day ago at the very least. It had been a long time, too, since he’d had meat. The divine taste was almost overpowering. 

The serpent had been relegated to inexistence until it slithered into view, coiling into a knot next to the fire, its ram horns differentiating its diamond head from the glittering obsidian of the rest of its body. Jongin’s jaw came to a grinding halt, jolted terribly at the sight and resurgent memory of the dream. It viewed him from lazy but watchful eyes, as though it knew, as though it was pleased. The worst was not that it seemed to know but that Jongin’s cock was stirring in naked display, ghostly echoes of cresting pleasure taking him awash. 

Worse still, none of it escaped the god’s vigilance. Jongin turned away, eating slower, sorely self-conscious. 

“What is it?” the god was wary.

“What is that thing?” 

“That is a serpent.” he said simply, shrugging. 

“That— do all serpents look like that?” 

“I suppose not,” the god seemed amused by Jongin’s incredulity. It induced a measure of frustration that made Jongin want to leap from the ground and demand explanation once again. 

“That is Loerae. He is… my vessel.” 

Jongin regrettably shook his head as the god offered him more meat. He would vomit if he took another bite and the fact saddened him greatly, when would he get to eat something so glorious again? In a blink the food was gone and instead the god was holding out a calyx shaped like a leaf. The liquid inside it was green and its outer surface was pasted with moss. When he raised it to his lips after an encouraging nod from the god, his mouth filled with water clear and rich like he’d never had before. He gulped it down thirstily but the volume did not deplete. The god beamed, knowing, and Jongin managed to slow down and truly savour, moss feeling like feathers on his skin and permeating him with the verdant scents of earth and rain. 

“A vessel for what?” 

The god did not answer. He picked up a stick and thrust it into the fire. Orange sparks shot up in a flurry. Jongin worried the roof might catch aflame but he remembered the discreet show of magic earlier on. If the fire got out of hand they would not burn, this much he could be certain of thus far. 

“My power.” the god said eventually, after a while of listening to the fire crackle. 

Jongin glanced at the serpent. It appeared to be asleep but Jongin had the disturbing feeling that it never truly slept. His power. Indeed, the dream alluded to that. Having Jongin’s spine snapping in two out of pleasure was a kind of power, was it not? Just a dream, he reminded himself, just a dream. Though it was without doubt that the god himself could elicit such a response from Jongin, if he wished. It was taking everything Jongin had not to reach out for the unclothed cock staring him in the face for the past— however long he’d been here. It was formidable in its limp state and he could not imagine how it would look aroused. Duskier? Redder? Beading, hard, so ripe for Jongin genuflect and take, _take—_

The serpent’s eyes were wide open. Jongin’s breath caught in surprise, in guilt. He stamped out the mental image, imagined a flood washing out the obscene roots taking in his mind. He was not this lascivious, ever, in his life. In fact it had been a source of ridicule, among many other things. It was the god having this effect on him, there was no other explanation. He had never wanted to touch a cock so bad or wrap his fingers around one just to see if it would fit or— 

“Jongin? Are you alright?”

“Hah?” 

“Are you ill?” he shifted closer, a steadying hand on Jongin’s shoulder. Jongin wanted to pry the fingers from his skin and taste them on his tongue. Then he wanted those fingers to pry his thighs apart and defile him to tears. He recoiled inwardly, rebuking himself for such an indecent head. What was wrong with him? Had he lost his mind? What was this voracious need he could not shake? 

“Ill? No, I… I’ve just been having… dreams. Peculiar dreams.” 

“Dreams.” the god straightened, removed his hand. “I see.” he looked away, gaze falling to the serpent. 

A pit opened up in Jongin’s stomach. Did he know? He must. Oh gods. 

“The earth is fecund. It awaits enrichment.” 

“What do you mean?”

“When I awake I mate with the goddess to seed the land. I am awake, the earth awaits. All will feel the demand until it is fulfilled.” 

“Where is your goddess?” 

“Well,” the god smirked, “let us say she is not most pleased with me as of this moment.” 

“Why not?” 

“I happen to have stolen something of hers. And now it is mine.” 

“Oh.” a warm tingle took up his spine. Darkness crept into the god’s face. Jongin’s lashes lowered of their own accord. Suddenly they were very close, Jongin could not breathe with the lack of proximity between them and he did not want to. He belonged to the god now, to do with as he pleased. It was not so frightening anymore. It made him ache deeply for whatever _use_ that would be. 

“Can I be honest?” 

“Of course, my lord.” 

“You are quite puzzling. I am awake a fortnight in advance of my rising time. I should not be here. Yet you managed to rouse me and I am not certain how you did it.” the god took Jongin’s cheek in his coarse palm, cradling it. “What are you, Jongin? How did you do that?” 

“I do not know.” he swallowed, “I just… prayed really hard and hoped you would come.” 

“Mmh,” he stroked Jongin’s cheek, “are you glad I did?” 

“Y-yes my lord.” Involuntarily, he turned closer into the god’s palm, his touch felt grievously good and he yearned for more, “Thank you.”

“Are you tired? Do you wish to rest?” but he did not wait for Jongin’s reply. Instead he procured a nest of furs and pelts and velvet cased pillows that were so soft his head felt like it was sinking into raw fleece. He was not tired but it felt good to stretch out, even if a part of him mourned the lost touch of the god. The being in question had not gone too far. He was spread out on his own strip of pelt right next to Jongin and gods be damned did he look every inch the deity he was. Now more than ever Jongin’s mouth watered again to worship him as he deserved. 

“Though you are not a stranger to luxury, I am glad the pillows comfort you, little one.” 

Had he said that aloud? And what luxury?

“My lord?” 

The god seemed confused by Jongin’s confusion. 

“Are you not the son of a king?” 

“Oh,” Jongin threaded his fingers through the mink, “oh, in essence I am.” 

The god leaned down, leaned in, “And otherwise?” 

“Otherwise,” his breath sounded raspy and the lump in his throat was heavy, “I am a disgraced individual the tuath could not outlaw early enough.” 

The god’s brows knitted, his amber flames swirled in their pits, he leaned even closer and whispered with a voice like wind whistling through a hollow trunk, “Disgraced? But you are so lovely.” 

The lurking grief he had subdued that was frothing to the surface momentarily vanished as he felt warmth bloom across his face. 

“I do not aim to flatter, little one.” the god’s odd and nonetheless beautiful face was still riddled with puzzle. “I try but too often it is easy to forget what curious creatures your people are. You carry power, I did not think one required special senses to detect that. You have a connection to the earth, no? You are sinfully beautiful. Above all, you are gentle and that tells me you are likely inclined to be just. Among my people, those are qualifiers for the office of a king.” 

“Yes,” Jongin said quietly, “but they do not see me as you do.” His chest was tight and to his chagrin his vision was starting to blur. “And I am not sure why you see me like you do, my lord. I am a simple farm boy.” 

“Jongin,” the god said, thumb gliding under Jongin’s eye and catching the chubby tears that were beginning to fall, “I told you, I sensed your connection with the earth when you were little more than a wain running barefoot through these woods. We thought you were just an unusually gifted human as we could find no magic in your aura. When you summoned me I thought perhaps the magic was dormant in you and it had awoken, yet there is nothing. You are a perplexing creature and very far from simple.” the god chided, gently wiping away more tears. 

Would it be inappropriate to turn into the god’s broad chest and let himself be lost in his tremendous embrace? His blood was singing for it. 

He had always been aware of the reality in the tuath, even if he squeezed the truth into infinitesimal bits and shoved them into an airless chasm inside himself. The closest he’d ever gotten to discussing it was with Síne and the language his foster sister spoke was giving a black eye to anyone who got in his path, squeezing his shoulder after and that was that, onto the next chore among a thousand. 

The first time they visited Jongin’s parents and she saw the discrepancy between Jongin’s reception and his brothers she muttered _that’s not right, this is not right,_ under her breath and gave the king daggers for eyes and parsimonious courtesy, as much as she could get away with, and that was the closest anyone had come to standing up for him.

It felt like the god had sundered all that he’d fought to hold closed through the years and there was no putting it back in place, tough and tidy. 

“My lord, thank you. For coming and for-for this.” 

The god smiled and before Jongin could take another breath, his face pressed into a chest, dark course hairs scratching his cheek, skin warm and soothing on his, bearded chin settling atop his head, “I have not done anything yet.” 

  
  


☽*☾

  
  


The wind made a tune out of the offerings hung up outside. Jongin listened as he inspected the plants growing outside the hut. Some of them he had never seen anywhere. He did not consider himself the ultimate source of knowledge on flora on the island but he was certain he had never seen plants like this one that resembled a cross between a mandrake and a fern but was duller in colour and resembled club moss a little more than ferns or mandrakes from afar. He wandered around in fascination, wondering what use they were of, where the god obtained them from, which part of the island. 

At times he wondered if they had all been right to berate him every step of this path he’d chosen. Especially when his mother had unshed tears burning in her eyes and she implored, _Son, must you do this? Please, it is not the way._

But plunder and ransack had never given him the rush and gratification it did his brothers and peers. It was the way, yes. It was supposed to be _his_ way, too. He could not bring himself to. He could not. The shame had always slowly splintered him from the inside and he could not see an end to it. Moments like these, though, when he could inhale and feel the earth in his lungs or was down to his elbow in the soils or toiling with the harvest or working with the livestock, the searing inside him was appeased to a simmer and the burden of his existence was replaced with butterflies of content. 

The content came to a premature end when Jongin leaned down to smell an unfamiliar herb and instead came eye to eye with the great black serpent. He landed on his bottom from the jolt of surprise and hastily inched away with his hands and heels. 

To its credit Loerae lowered its head as if apologizing. As if that were not uncanny enough, Jongin could swear there was unhappiness on its scaled countenance. 

“Stay away from me!” he ripped out some grass in his clutch and hurled it in the reptile’s direction as hard as he could. “That’s right, tuck your tail coward!” he yelled for good measure as it slithered back and disappeared, even as he shook. 

Jongin waited a breath to calm himself before shooting to his feet. He could no longer deny it, he missed his family terribly. He missed Síne, he missed Ma and Maimeó. Did Amer get a new apprentice? Who was helping them prepare for Imbolc? Who would do the calving and the ditches? He wouldn’t let them see him, he would just go and have a look at how they were faring. If he found the waterfall, he could find his way back home. 

Truthfully, it was not the serpent he was terrified of. Or at least, not the serpent alone. He could no longer think about it without being reminded of those dreams. Earlier he had awoken with a repeat of the previous dream. The god was nowhere to be seen and Jongin hoped he’d been gone a long time for the thought of him squirming against the god and staining him with release in his sleep would simply kill him. He’d had the same dream of the serpent ramming him full but this time he’d been strung up in the air the way he’d been when he was offered to the goddess. The serpent held his legs apart with its own body as its head pumped in and out of him, only grazing the delicate bundle of dense senses and driving him to madness. 

Whatever the god had to do to make Jongin’s body stop acting this outlandish, he hoped the god would do it soon because he could not take another night of such unseemly dreams. 

Straining, he listened for the roar of the fall that was starting to get fainter. He caught a sharp whistle that made him pause still as a stone to glean the direction it came from. When he whirled around there was someone waiting for him. 

The glade had become devoid of air. The fall could not be heard at all and the sounds of the forest had disappeared as if the trees suddenly existed in a vacuum. 

The woman before him appeared like a roughened wraith. She donned a long cloak of black feathers and it fell open to her front. Her skin, perhaps pale as camphor at some point, was dusted in a sheen of black dirt, as if she’d rolled around in soot. A thick coil of gold torc fell to the swell of her breasts. A silver crescent hung from her navel, her fingers glittered with bronze and silver and thin anklets graced her feet. Her hair was black as night and fell to her thighs, clumped in some places. 

Her thighs and arms were marked with dark, bold markings and runes that pulsed with the vitality of the Old Language. Her face was not exempt from the smear, her under-eyes the darkest parts with that soot-like substance lined there repeatedly like war paint. Her lips were white as death and her eyes were pale crystals that bit like blocks of ice. 

“So this is what you have been up to.” her voice sucked the air out of Jongin’s lungs and he thought a few more seconds in her presence might truly kill him. She stalked towards him, slow, with her shoulders hunched, her chin pointed down and her eyes glaring up. Helpless, Jongin felt very much like a prey caught by a predator aeons out of his depth and definitely decided on his slaughter. 

She raised her hand, gripping a thin chain he had not noticed and aimed it at him. It wrapped around his throat before he could open his mouth. It choked off his breath, making him falter and stumble. It was then he saw the arrow protruding from him. _Oh._

That was the whistle sound he had heard. He could not feel where it entered him, he could not feel a thing. In a surge of panic he grasped the end of it and gave a _pull._ It twisted inside him without extracting it. The effects of it crept on him as a crippling wave of pain cut his legs out from under him and brought him to his knees, still unable to breath. 

“Did you really think you could change your fate? Did you think you could escape me?” she laughed and it made her appear furious. 

_No!_ he wanted to shout, _no I didn’t think it would work! Forgive me!_

But the goddess would not be soothed, she tugged on the chain and it sent Jongin to his side, gliding along the grass at her whim. 

He gasped and gasped and tried to keep the spots in his vision from taking hold. 

“What I really want to know,” she was standing over him, slate eyes boring into his with icy curiosity, “is why he hasn’t fucked you yet. Does he think the Season will be denied?” 

Jongin could only gurgle in response. He tasted metal in his mouth. The excruciation made him want to yowl like a wounded animal and in this moment he was nothing more than a wounded animal. 

She pivoted away from Jongin, a strain going down the chain as she got further away and stifled more air from him. He tried to croak out but he was not sure he made a sound. His vision was fading fast and letting go was becoming appealing at an increasingly alarming rate but the pain was too great. 

A shadow twitched in the periphery. It moved until it was solid and black as night in the slits remaining of Jongin’s vision. It opened a maw of serrated fangs, shock faintly registering at the back of Jongin’s mind because that had not been there the last time he’d seen Loerae open its mouth. But… had he really seen it open its mouth? Did he not think he knew what he _thought_ it looked like because of a mere few dreams? Was that its true form? It was getting so hard to open his eyes once he blinked, like the chain was tied to his lids and not his throat and he had no choice but to keep them closed. 

There was… a new voice. Jongin… Jongin knew it. Perhaps. He was not sure what he knew and what he had dreamed. Perhaps he’d been dreaming the entire time. Perhaps he was still suspended in the trees for the goddess and this whole thing had been a hallucination. He did not know, but god, everything hurt. 

He caught snatches through the cracks of agony; “Are you not desperate for it?” 

The reply eluded him but the goddess’s laugh was something awful and binding. “Why have you not chained him to a trunk yet? A human, my sweet fool. A _human._ As I recall, you could never get enough of me once you were released from Repose.” 

“He is not you, Mor.” the voice, the one Jongin knew or perhaps didn’t, had a tremor, the way people do when they are either in emotional anguish or are one word from exacting complete destruction.

“At last, you speak the truth!” 

“Mor…” 

The rest of it was lost to Jongin but in the fraction he managed to open his eyes one final time, he caught Loerae with its maw full of metal, the chain shredded and oh— Jongin could take a sweet breath but agony immediately jammed up his side to meet the deep breath and the black rose up to grab him. 

☽*☾ 

A galaxy of bones and skulls and little wooden horns welcomed him when he came to. Beyond it was a blur of darkness that came into focus as he stared. The treetops left polite intervals between their peaks as if respecting each other’s space. In the gaps the night sky was indigo like berries from the keen light of the waxing gibbous moon. The woods were unnaturally still and silent but it did not emanate menace. It was peaceful, in a way that felt foreign to his skeleton. He breathed in the shrewd and spiced air for a long time. Until it registered that he was lying on the ground. Until it registered that he could not move. 

He tried to wriggle his arms but he had control over little more than his fingers, which were fastened to his side. The same applied for his legs and torso and somewhere at the back of his mind there was alarm but it was not compelling. 

“Hello.” said a voice nearby. 

Jongin lifted his head to see a large stag-headed creature sitting cross legged. Its silver ashen skull gleamed and twin amber flames pinpointed Jongin with gentle intensity.

“Hi,” Jongin croaked, “am I dead this time?” 

“Is this what you desire to meet in death?” the god’s voice was ancient in this form, it seeded veneration in Jongin’s spine. 

“I suppose.” he shrugged, or as much as he could, “I have seen better looking men.” 

“I see you have found your valour and tongue, little one.” 

“Was I lacking before?” he did not know why his mood had changed so swiftly but it was as though the god has pressed into an open gash and a phantom pang of hurt went through him. 

“Of course not.” He moved so fast it was like he manifested over Jongin. Astride, he pulled up the layers of moss and leaves and plants that were so compact they were locking him into the shallow pit the god had dug out. A cluster of stones pale as parchment circled his little grave and now upright he could see the miniature fire burning close to where the god had sat. The heavy scents in the air were originating from it and it took a moment to identify the scents pervading his nostrils as myrrh and sage and another component that was foreign to his nose. 

The wound near his waist was sealed completely and the only evidence of the incident that put it there was the jagged scar, slightly pink in hue, marring his skin. He traced it hesitantly, anticipating the pain that would come but it seemed he was either numbed or healed wholly by whatever the god had done. 

“My lord,” he started, glancing up at the daunting creature hovering over him, “it seems I become indebted to you eternally by the day.” 

“Does that burden you?” there was something melancholic in that ancient voice. 

_“Burden_ me? _No._ I cannot express my gratitude. What do you ask of me?” 

“Jongin,” he said, deflated, “I am old and it has been a long time…” the god trailed off, sat back on his haunches, “It has been long since I felt shame. It should not have happened to you, I should have protected you. There is nothing you need to repay me for.” 

Jongin could not explain why but it was fresh anguish to see such a majestic creature so contrite, especially on his behalf. 

“My lord,” Jongin crawled closer until he could put a hand on the god’s thigh, ignoring the shock going through him at the touch, “no, that’s not true. I invoked you and you came when you were not obliged. I was fearful but you’ve treated me well. I do not blame you.” he rose up on his knees to put his palm against the textured cheek of the god’s skull, trembling a little. 

A gasp left him as the god transformed under his hand, the cool ivory of the skull turning to textured but warm skin, bones and muscles restructuring to resemble a man as closely as possible like earlier. His form still consumed Jongin’s like a mountain to a hill but they were suddenly much closer, Jongin kneeling between the god’s thighs to reach his face. 

“Please,” Jongin inched closer, terribly aware that he was pressed flesh to flesh to the god and everything that had gone silent inside him was roaring now, “please ask something of me.” 

The god said nothing but the amber flames rippled in palpable struggle. At last, when Jongin was sure he would just shake his head and deny Jongin, he breathed out unsteadily: “Would you allow me to kiss you?” 

And Jongin leaned up as the god held still as pillar, and pressed his lips to the god’s. Mighty arms came around him, sealing him to a chest. As if that was all he needed to be undone, the god started to move his lips with Jongin’s, slowly and then devouring all at once. His beard scratched Jongin harshly as they moved roughly together but it was a satisfying burn and he reached to grip the god’s chin, fingers tangled in the wiry hairs, pulling the god’s mouth open so he could kiss him deeper, lewd. 

He was moving on instinct, like an animal, but everything he wanted, everything he _needed_ from the god felt intuitive, like some knowledge he had carried with him viscerally but was only now discovering in himself. 

When the god lowered him to the ground and ensnared him with his enormous body, Jongin trembled and bucked underneath him and the god rumbled in his chest, pinning him down harder, kissing him ardent and wet. Jongin heaved up and tried to follow the god’s mouth when it left his, when it went to nose into his neck and kiss it gentler than he’d kissed Jongin’s lips. 

“My-my lord, my lord,” Jongin rasped in a desperate groan, clinging to the god’s antlers with both hands and trying to guide his head but the god would not budge; he roamed over Jongin’s body at his will. 

“My dear one,” the god rumbled back, kissing down his sternum, “my beauty,” 

Beautiful was never a word Jongin had associated with himself in all his years and somewhere in his mind a protest went out but the god was so earnest he could not bring himself to dispute it. He let out a frustrated groan when the god would not kiss him again, eliciting a deep chuckle before “Patience,” was whispered against his cheek and he was being kissed to the brink of death again. 

The god stroked down his back, caressed up to his nape, carded through his hair before smoothing down his back, his waist, never low enough for Jongin’s tastes even though he could feel the stirring of the hardening cock against his thigh. Frustrated, he grabbed the god’s hands and set them lower, on the swell of his butt. He suffered another chuckle that made him huff and break the kiss. Was this not how people did it? He had no experience with this sort of intimacy, though he was sure there was at least a few people who would be willing to lie with him back at the village despite his reputation. He had never felt the compulsion, and in fact it repulsed him to think of it. 

Truthfully he’d never felt this intensity of pleasure, this need, this undone. The Season or whatever the god said might be affecting them but he knew himself and his body and the desire he felt for the god was bigger than magic, rawer, innate and unarguably his own. It made him die a small internal death that the god might be amused by his inexperience. Did he come across as too simple and artless? He did not know the rules for this intimacy and his desire was quickly sinking into despair. 

“Why do you laugh at me?” 

“I do not laugh at you.” 

“Am I lying?” 

The god sighed, brushed a lock of hair behind Jongin’s ear and when he faced him again, the look on him made Jongin’s heart swell unfairly. 

“You fill me with joy. I have not wanted to laugh without reason for longer than I care to remember.” 

“Oh.” the indignation died in Jongin’s throat. 

“It is a pleasure to lie with you, I could stay like this for eternity.” 

“Is that true?” Jongin raised a skeptical brow, even as relief shuddered his frame, “All due respect, I hope you won’t.” 

“Well,” the god smiled, “there is nothing you could do if I decided to embrace you forever, embrace you and nothing more.” he rested his giant and heavy head on Jongin’s chest to prove his point and something about the action made him giggle. It was as though the god was an overgrown puppy.

“You would do that to me?” he accused, taking his turn to stroke the long fair hair on the god’s head, thrumming with pleasure at where their cocks pushed together but oddly content with their current positions, “You would let me die of need?” 

“Oh _a rúnsearc,_ you are mistaken if you think I’d let you die. And no, I jest with you. Any pleasure you seek, I will give you.” the god leaned to put a wet kiss on his chin before resting back on his chest. 

Jongin’s head was light and his body did not feel like his own. He could do nothing but stare as the god grew concerned with his gaping silence. 

“Jongin? Is it your wound? Do I… did I do something to frighten you?” 

“What… what did you call me?” 

“Jongin, are you—” the god started to lift himself off but Jongin wrapped himself around him like vine.

“Say it again,” Jongin pleaded, his heart was drumming too hard, “say it again,” 

_“A rúnsearc,”_ he whispered fondly, cupping Jongin’s cheek.

The word flared inside Jongin, a glow taking ahold of his body, crawling over his skin with depth and hum of the Old Language. He shivered and whimpered and sank down into flaming desire. 

“Yes,” the god said, “yes,” lips trailing over Jongin’s cheeks before they found his mouth again and they were kissing like they wanted to lay each other’s souls bare. 

Twigs and leaves scraped Jongin’s back as he writhed in their uncoordinated dance of lust. This was it, the passion he’d waited for, the undeniable, maddening need that made him feel like he had been gifted an extra set of senses that opened up another dimension of existence. 

He pushed back against the god, came out on top in their tangle of desperation, perched on the god’s torso as he let the god’s tongue fill his mouth. The god broke off occasionally to whisper something but Jongin was dizzy with arousal and even the god could not seem to keep away too long for he dove back into Jongin’s mouth like he didn’t know how to be away from it. 

“Jongin,” the god was saying, “Jongin,” he ducked Jongin’s desperate mouth, _why was he talking? Could he not see that Jongin was losing his mind?_

Jongin shoved him closer, every inch of their bodies needing to be in contact. He pressed kisses to the god’s shoulder, so firm and rough, and veined densely like bark, inviting Jongin to sink his teeth in and feel with his tongue. The god’s words were lost on him, spurred by the moans that kept choking them off. The marks he was trying to leave were not taking and it was sending him nothing short of savage. He kissed up the god’s neck that was thrown back, ferociously pleased that it was him that was the god’s ruin. It was hooking, the rush of gratification and control that came with satisfying a god beyond speech and it felt like magic was coming alive in his veins. 

He did not think twice when he reached down and wrapped his fingers around the already hard cock. The god’s eyes flared in astonishment, amber consuming his entire sockets, serving as a reminder that it was a being much more powerful and sturdier than himself that he was consorting with, that the god could so much as crush him accidentally and Jongin had no power to stop him. The primal fear was offset by the bruisingly gentle hold the god had around his waist, how he hulked over Jongin with a visage that wanted to devour him but rumbled Jongin’s name like it was the only divinity he had ever encountered. The combination made for a shattering degree of arousal and Jongin could cry from how much desire his core throbbed with. 

He was pleased to find that his illicit musings about his grip in relation to the god’s size were correct. It was laughable how small his fingers were on the god’s cock, how they came nowhere close to meeting around the monstrous girth and the more he tried, the more he inadvertently squeezed and the more injured groans the god tried to muffle. 

“My lord…?” he tried to ask if he were hurting him but the god’s hand came clamping down on his the instant he tried to remove it. 

“Please… do not stop, _Jongin,”_ he groaned as he squeezed their hands. 

Jongin’s cock answered in a leaking pulse and he let out a suffering whine. 

“I won’t,” he reassured, madly turned on, “I won’t.” 

He had never seen anything like the god’s cock. It was so big that Jongin momentarily worried how it would fit inside him. Veins ridged the entire length, as thick as the ones on the rest of his body. Precum leaked profusely from the big, shiny mushroomed head, trailing a light green substance to tight hard balls at its base. It had grown impossibly hard in Jongin’s hold, hot, silken and shades of light plum and angry red. It emitted a woodsy, musky scent that filled Jongin’s mouth with water and he ached to bury his nose in the god’s heavy balls and suck. 

_“Stars_ , _”_ the god growled, his eyes were emerald hued at the fringes, “I’ve thought of your beautiful mouth, too, _a rúnsearc,”_ he grabbed Jongin’s chin, another hand on his butt, pushing him closer. “Sinful,” he traced Jongin’s lips then placed a kiss on his open mouth, “I dreamt of these lips taking my cock, trying to say my name as you did, and I knew I had to leave, could not stay sleeping by your side or I would defile you in your sleep.” 

The words shook Jongin. The fear of reaching his end without being touched was gaining merit. 

“Why did you not?” he demanded, mourning the missed possibilities. He assumed the god had left to tend to some business when he’d awoken to find him gone. If he had known he was not alone in the yearning he was suppressing he would have offered himself to the god ages before. 

“I did not want to force myself on you. I wanted you to come to me out of your will. I would not be able to stop myself…” 

“I do not want you to,” Jongin shook his head, wrapped an arm that couldn’t go all the way around the god’s extensive shoulders as he kept stroking, “please, my lord, I want you, I want everything,” 

“You have me.” his hand grazed down Jongin’s back, until he was trailing a finger between Jongin’s cheeks, “I shall give everything to you, I promise.” 

He captured the god’s lips again, humming appreciatively when two impossibly thick and veiny fingers— somehow wet with substance that felt like the god’s precum—stroked his puckered entrance. Excitement and yearning made him lap eagerly at the god’s mouth, hand squeezing a little too tightly on the monstrous cock and resulting in a choked laugh from the god. 

“My dear one, do you attempt to kill me?” 

“No, sorry my lord,” he said sheepishly, easing up. 

“Chanyeol,” the god murmured quietly, “call me Chanyeol.”

Jongin’s breath came out in a rush. Momentarily his hand slackened and his eyes widened.

“Chanyeol…” he whispered, turning the foreign name over on his tongue. He liked it. 

“Stars,” the god— Chanyeol— groaned and then pleaded, “again.”

“Chanyeol, my lord,” his whisper turned into a shocked whine. A wet finger eased into him, sitting him to the hilt. The god hummed, grazed his lips and moved the finger tentatively. 

“How do you feel?” 

“I… I need more.” he whispered, his cheeks warming. 

The god— Chanyeol— nodded and held him tighter. 

The reeling from the god telling him his name had not yet subsided and Jongin could only stare with wide eyes. Before he knew it, tears welled in his eyes and escaped. He knew what it meant for the god to divest that information. No one had ever entrusted him with something of this importance. After a lifetime of being second and third and fourth guessed, this show of trust was sweetly heartbreaking. He quickly wiped at his face but the god had already seen and gone stock still. 

_“A chuisle,”_ said Chanyeol hoarsely, “what is it?” 

Jongin shook his head and threw his arms around the god. 

“Oh,” Chanyeol said, taken aback. 

“You told me your name.” he sniffled against breastbone, unable to help the tears. 

“Jongin,” Chanyeol cooed next to his ear, embracing him wholly. “I know you will keep it safe.” 

_“You_ attempt to drown me in your vast affections.” 

The god kissed his hair and hushed him softly. “You warrant great affection.” 

After the wave of high emotion settled down with kisses and caresses, Chanyeol wandered downwards with two fingers. “Do you want this? We don’t have to—”

“Yes,” Jongin murmured, burying his nose in the god’s chest, “I want to.” he inhaled the god’s scent, the musk and fresh earth after a rainstorm, the dew and spring sunlight that he wanted to remember forever. The unbridled strength beneath the ridges of perfectly sculpted muscle cocooned him in security he had never known and whatever the god wanted, Jongin was ready to offer in a heartbeat. 

He tried to manoeuvre his hand around to the god’s cock again while the god— Chanyeol— opened him up but he was stopped in his tracks and had, “Shh, just enjoy it.” murmured against his head. 

He sighed woefully but gave in. 

He found himself moving with the fingers, dulating unconsciously, soft mewls leaving his lips as Chanyeol teased a concentrated spot that promised pleasure he’d experienced in recent dreams. 

_“Ah,”_ he gasped when Chanyeol longer teased but thrust inside properly and hit that spot, “Chan-chanyeol,” 

“I know, I know,” Chanyeol soothed, but his fingers moved faster and Jongin was once again losing hold on his mind. “Tell me how you feel,” his whisper carried playfulness and Jongin had no patience to entertain it. He groaned incomprehensibly, scratching at the god and straining to lift his hips that were being forced steady. 

“Chanyeol, _Chanyeol,_ if you don’t— I swear— Chanyeol!” he howled as the god hit the spot again, a shiver breaking over him. The pleasure turned to sorrow at lightning speed when the fingers pulled out of him, leaving him empty and aching and he pounded his fists on the god’s chest, demanding, cursing, prayer, a litany of gibberish streaming unfiltered from his brain. 

_“A chuisle, a chuisle,”_ he caught Jongin’s fists, “look at me, look at me, that’s it, tell me what you need, what do you need?” 

“I want…” Jongin’s mind was scrambled from pleasure and the god knew it. The stalling was just a ploy to tease Jongin further and Jongin did not know if he were uncontrollably furious or uncontrollably turned on by the fact that Chanyeol held everything he wanted in this moment and only he could decide when he would give it, (and that he would give it, eventually). 

“Mmh, you can tell me.” 

“You promised.” he accused brokenly. 

“I know, I know,” he stroked Jongin’s hair and kissed him with both hands cupping his face. “Will you let me hear it?” 

“Yes, yes, please, my lord, I want you to fuck me with your cock,” 

“Sweet words,” the god rumbled in approval. 

“I want you to break me, I know you can and I want to feel so good it hurts because-because you can and—make me cry a-and scream, I’ll scream for you my lord, I promise, I promise, _please_ —” 

“Jongin.” Chanyeol breathed in awe. 

He was on his knees before he could utter another word. The earth was rough on his caps but his mind was not on his well being at all. He braced the ground and jutted his hips out in a desperate prayer: _I need you, I need you._

Chanyeol covered him with his body, barkskin grazing Jongin’s as he kissed behind his ear and murmured, “My gorgeous boy, _a rúnsearc,_ I’ll give you all the pleasure you could know, open yourself for me,” 

Jongin obediently reached back, shame that had no place, gone on the wind, and held himself open for the cockhead pressing into his entrance in permission. He waited for the thrust, for the god to bury himself in to the balls but Chanyeol seemed to prioritize Jongin’s comfort and it made Jongin quiver with emotion underneath him. 

“Yes?” Chanyeol asked, pushing in another inch. 

Jongin was starting to feel the stretch but Stars it was not enough, not even close. 

“Yes, yes, please,” he pushed back his hips but Chanyeol swiftly caught his waist and held him still. 

“Impatient boy.” he grunted, but Jongin was pleased to hear him start to sound frayed. 

A startling slap met his butt when he tried it again and both of them froze. Then Jongin began to giggle and the god huffed frustratedly. 

“I did not think you would do that.” 

“I will not do it again.” the god said, rubbing the stinging spot apologetically. 

“I didn’t say it was not nice.” Jongin craned his neck and threw a smirk over his shoulder. 

“Dirty boy.” 

Jongin craned again incredulously, “Said the one with his cock inside me.” 

“Not completely,” 

“Unfortunately. Going to do something about it or bore me flaccid?” 

“Bore you?” Chanyeol said flatly. Whatever Jongin had to say was lost in a short shout as the god grabbed his hips tighter and thrust harder than he had better. He had yet to bottom out but Jongin was definitely feeling the stretch, feeling the fullness and if it felt like this with only half of Chanyeol inside him, he couldn’t wait for the full force of it breaking him in two as he needed. 

“Stars,” Jongin sobbed, clutching the grass, “so good, Chanyeol, so— god— _fuck,”_

“That’s right, _a chuisle_ ,” Chanyeol murmured, kissing the shell of his ear, dragging his lips to Jongin’s arched throat. He pulled Jongin back by the waist and he drove forward harshly, grip tender as it was anchoring. He fucked him at the slow, hard pace, filling Jongin so good he scraped at the ground and crawled on his knees but the god was steady at his back, tight and massive inside him.

When Chanyeol was finally fully in him Jongin made a high, wounded sound. His hips stuttered, he felt so close. The steady motion on the grass burned his arms and knees but he did not want it to stop. He didn’t want any of it to stop. He wanted Chanyeol to fuck him into the forest floor until he could no longer tell sky from ground and fill him with his thick, viscous green cum, trapped here between the god’s colossal thighs bracketing his hips and carpeting his body. “My lord” he gasped, “Chanyeol, kiss me, Chany— “

His chin was forced around and Chanyeol’s mouth was on his as soon as he asked. He grabbed on to the horns looming above him and a shudder wracked through the god above him. Between kisses and praises Chanyeol rode him like an animal and Jongin’s bones almost snapped and reshaped as he writhed in pleasure and need. 

He reached down for his cock to stroke off some of the unbearable need that felt he would never be satisfied. That was when he felt it. The distension, disappearing and reappearing perfectly in time with Chanyeol’s thrusts. He let out a ruined whimper. 

“Jongin?” Chanyeol slowed down. 

Incapable of words, Jongin took Chanyeol’s hand in his hair and led it down to his stomach. 

“Stars, Jongin what is— Is that—”

“You,” he croaked, “it’s _you_ Chanyeol.” 

“Oh… oh Stars,” 

Suddenly he was ripped from Chanyeol’s cock, a protesting whine building up in his throat and quickly dying as he was laid on his back. Pushing apart Jongin’s knees, the god stared in silence for a moment at Jongin’s hole which he could feel gaping from being stretched and fucked by a cock of that insane girth and length. 

“Chanyeol,” he whispered, closing his legs in self-consciousness. 

“You’re beautiful, _a chuisle,_ so perfect. Let me see.” he coaxed, rubbed Jongin’s kneecaps and leaning down to press a kiss to each of them. 

And perfect he felt under those eyes, once again swarmed by that cocoon of safety. So he parted his legs again and groaned softly when Chanyeol plugged two fingers inside him. They weren’t big enough, not after what he just had but before he could voice his need, Chanyeol was already lining himself up again, making them both groan at not only the abrasion of re-stretching but at the profane sight of such an absurdly large thing enter somewhere it should not have been able to fit— but it did, it did. 

“You-you take me so well,” the god seemed to be thinking along the same lines, “you make me so proud, look at you. Perfect. For me.” 

Jongin could do nothing but moan at the praise, warmed in so many ways. 

When they glimpsed the distention they let out a groan in unison, Chanyeol’s deepening into a growl. Mesmerised by Jongin’s tummy, the god fucked him raw but slow. 

Jongin fumbled for Chanyeol’s hand and then set their clasped ones on his stomach, on the bump, both shaking. 

“Break me,” Jongin pleaded, pushing down on the bump and groaning in abandon. 

Chanyeol shook his head, maintaining his cautious pace. 

“Break. Me.” he bared his teeth, ache so deep he could not breathe another moment without being pounded. “You said y-you would, you— Chanyeol. Don’t you see? I am yours to break.” 

Whatever control Chanyeol had been clinging to fractured right in front of Jongin’s eyes. The flames in his eyes leapt and the amber was consumed by the tinge of green. His form had become less defined, less human. A second set of bigger horns— antlers— sprouted from his head, and the ones already there seemed to spread like buttress roots into his temple. Drool dripped from his open mouth onto Jongin’s face, his mouth and Jongin salaciously licked it into his mouth. Chanyeol looked ready to ravish Jongin afresh and it was equally terrifying and riveting. 

Chanyeol grabbed his hips, hold once again anchor soft, and fucked him at a blurring speed. Jongin clutched the grass above his head, clutched his own hair, tore at everything within his grasp, before pulling Chanyeol down to drape and smother him with his own body. He grasped the god’s horns and held on for life as Chanyeol fucked him stupefied. They exchanged sloppy kisses that barely landed and held each other tight as they careened towards the climax, grunts and slaps and groans filling the night. 

“I want to be inside you forever, _a rúnsearc,_ I want to fuck your sweet hole _again and again_ ,” 

“Then do it,” Jongin cried, spine bowing, insides clenching, “do it, do it, do—” Chanyeol curved his hips, meeting that spot in a fresh angle that pushed Jongin over and made him scream his name. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” Chanyeol chanted, tongue lolling, hips grinding impossibly hard, release seeding and staining Jongin deep, hot and full and _endless._ The yeses turned into hopeless murmurs of Jongin’s name, pleas and praises and grunts after shockwaves of bliss. 

“No!” Jongin clung onto Chanyeol’s shoulders as he attempted to rise and remove himself. “Just a little longer,” he whispered shyly. 

The rumble of appreciation made Jongin clench and pulse for a moment, in turn eliciting a groan from Chanyeol. “You like having me inside you.” Chanyeol whispered back, hoarse himself, and sounded so happy about the fact that Jongin could not help but grin. 

“I love it.” he admitted, stroking the matted hair away from his lover’s sweaty face. 

“As long as you need.” he promised and burrowed into Jongin’s neck, which proved difficult now, added headgear and all. 

_“Headgear.”_ the god said in appall when Jongin mentioned it aloud. 

“Yes, like a helmet. Who wears a helmet to sex?” 

_“Helmet.”_ he groaned, even more appalled. “Stars, why are you so chatty?” 

“It appears you have not exhausted me.” Jongin stuck out his tongue and karma came back to him, eliciting a yelp as Chanyeol quickly leaned down and bit the tip. Jongin’s glare was met with a calm smiling face, amber eyes warm and steady. It melted him frustratingly fast and he could not help cupping the god’s face and bringing their lips to meet. Satiation saturated him and the world felt light and whole. 

He laid on his back afterwards, trying to catch his breath. But the god would not allow it, tucking him in close, nesting his head on a sturdy shoulder, intertwining their legs. A cuddly god, the thought tickled him.

“Something amusing?” the god murmured. 

Jongin glanced up, sweat dripping from his temples and soaking into Chanyeol’s skin. They were both drenched in sweat, streaked with dirt and grass, their matted hairs dishevelled with twigs and leaves. With a small smile, Jongin plucked a leaf of the fern-mandrake plant and held it between them.

“What is this?”

“This? Wormwood.” said Chanyeol. He transferred Jongin’s head to the cradle of his palm so he could sit up a little. 

“Where did you get it? I’ve never seen it.” 

“Mmh.” he took the leaf, grazing it over Jongin’s cheek, trailing it over the bridge of his nose, sliding it into his nostril. 

“Ah!” Jongin yelled and swung up, exhaling through his nose as hard as possible. Chanyeol was ready for him when he launched himself, catching him by the shoulders and pinning him down, smug mug hovering over his. He kicked and thrashed but he was no match for a god. Deflatedly, he settled down with a permanent frown etched on him. 

“Bloody bastard.” he huffed, turning away. 

“What was that?” Chanyeol asked softly. The woods went quiet and the temperature dropped all at once. A chill forced itself up Jongin. When had he got so comfortable with a god that he easily cursed him?

Slowly, with apprehension coiling tight as he realized the mistake, he looked up. 

If he was smitten on the spot he would understand. 

But Chanyeol was… _smiling?_ And now he was guffawing…?

 _“Smite you?”_ he was saying, “Smite you? Jongin, what goes through your pretty head?” he rested his forehead on Jongin’s, eyes squeezed tight as he continued to chuckle, echoes of the deep reverberations in his chest going through Jongin’s. 

Jongin curled his palm around the god’s nape once he looked up, scratching gently as the sheepishness sank in. 

Chanyeol stared at him for a long minute with a smile that sat as perfect as clouds in the sky, crows feet wrinkling the corners of his happy eyes, crown of antlers on his head crowding in and appearing to peer down at Jongin, too, before he said, “You are cute, Jongin.” and sighed. 

“So are you,” Jongin returned, forcing a chuckle from the god. 

Chanyeol put a quick peck on his lips before lying down by his side again and draping an arm over him. They enjoyed the closeness and the silence and as Jongin was falling asleep, he heard the quiet admission.

“I brought wormwood from my mother’s ancestral lands.” 

Jongin opened his eyes but did not move. 

“She is the one who taught me how to make its tincture. It grew in fields behind our abode and I’d spend an entire afternoon rolling around in its bitter scent trying to abscond my duties.” the smile was in his voice and Jongin nestled closer. 

“Where is she now?” 

“She fell in battle.”

It was a disconcerting thing to hear anguish in a god’s voice, but there it was, raw in a way that did not know how to be anything but. 

It was his turn to sit up and caress Chanyeol’s cheek. “Chanyeol… I am so sorry.”

Chanyeol turned into his hand, kissed the inside, “My little one,” 

“You won’t find wormwood anywhere else here but I will give you the seeds, wherever you want to grow them.” He pulled Jongin back down, threw a pillar-thick thigh over his hip with a content smile. 

“I would like tha—aat,” a yawn stole into his words, the warm glow of happiness giving way to drowsiness. He did not remember a time in his life that he felt like this. So in kindred with another, like this. It made him want to rise up on the wind and yell to anyone he would listen about the sheer jubilation of it, if he had the energy.

“When I was little older than four or five summers I was dropped off at aes Liath.” Jongin whispered into the cosy silence. He felt Chanyeol perk up and once the words escaped he couldn’t stop. “I have no recollection of the time before that or who my parents are. The king’s family took me in because the queen, my mother, really wanted another child. She wanted more sons but she’d only borne three.” he squirmed unconsciously and Chanyeol brought a tender hand to his waist. Solaced, he let out a loose shuddering breath and fortified himself. 

“The my father, the king, did not like me. I don’t think he ever accepted me. It was obvious to everyone who saw us together and when the time came to go away to be fostered by Ma and Da, my foster brothers knew I would never be their equals.” he sighed at the memory of the older, more robust boys circling him with taunts until he fought back. 

“I made it worse for myself when I discovered my affinity for growing things. As expected, I was to fight for our clan. But it was the last thing I wanted. I could not stay away from the fields, from planting, from the animals. A noble-bred boy choosing duties beneath his station. They said it was unnatural, that I was usurping the natural order of things and bringing bad luck to the tuath, that we would all get punished for my choices.” it was getting harder and harder to speak but he pushed out the words, despite the sting it was somehow refreshing to get them out. And Chanyeol had trusted him with his name, something that could enslave him to anyone who knew it. He could give this much back. 

“It brought shame to both of my families and however much I wanted to appease them I could not bring myself to take a life or burn down innocent homes. I know many think me a coward but is bravery proven through harming life or upholding it? I know it is not our way but…” 

_“A rúnsearc,”_ Chanyeol sat up, lifted Jongin with him, cupping his cheeks, “your way is unlike others and that requires strength unpossessed by others. It is easy to trample the flower but how many can sustain it?”

“Chanyeol,” the name bowed on his tongue and he saw how the god shuddered, “your kindness breaks me, my lord.”

“You are more dear than you know.” 

Unsure of who moved to whom, their lips came together and it was as though they were kissing for the first time that night. A new depth had opened up between them and it was weighted and brimming with a sharp intimacy that was daunting, languid, breathtaking. 

It was so comforting that Jongin did not realize he yawned again mid-kiss. Chanyeol chuckled and laid them down again, Jongin cushioned on his shoulder, his eyes closing immediately.

“Haven’t exhausted you.” the god scoffed. 

Jongin swatted his face but he missed severely because he couldn’t see. The last thing he heard was a promise to see if Chanyeol could make him feel so good he lost consciousness next time. _Stars, what a proposal,_ he thought and promptly started dreaming of fields of wormwood and gorse and eyes that glowed like both. 

☽*☾

Jongin felt their union in every step, every breath, when he awoke. It was the most pleasant pain he’d ever felt. But Chanyeol insisted on paying a visit to the fall, not only to cleanup but soothe those aches with what Jongin was definitely calling Magic Mud. Chanyeol could argue however many times that it was, indeed, just regular mud with healing properties, that he enhanced himself but it _was_ Magic Mud. Perhaps being ancient sucked the joy out of him because where was the fun in that? 

That was not true, though. Granted, there was something about the god that wasn’t age, a vestige of times far bygone that he carried around which Jongin could not put a finger on. But to say that he was joyless was downright slanderous. The wind sang silently each time the god smiled— he was doing a lot of that this morning— he kept Jongin close, touched him often, and seemed grateful for it each time, and the simple intimacy of being together knowing whatever they were feeling was shared buoyed between them. 

The god may have done a number on Jongin’s body last night but Jongin had apparently held his own. Chanyeol’s chest resembled a man out of battle, his corded upper arms, too. He could not seem to completely straighten his hair out of the wild mess Jongin had pulled it into and the dark bruises courtesy of insatiable lips—which Jongin had plenty to count himself— marked the corner of his lips where they disappeared into his facial hair. 

The difference was that Chanyeol did not have a big limp in his walk. Chanyeol had initially been concerned when he saw it, picking Jongin up immediately and half way to retrieving his tinctures and soporific incense. After Jongin had sworn on everything that was sacred to him and admitted to liking the soreness with near-lewd specificity, Chanyeol had finally broken in and calmed down. It lasted all of three seconds until he turned it on Jongin with the most arrogant spiel Jongin had ever heard, squeezing Jongin’s butt, preening if Jongin had ever seen it. 

Jongin feigned due annoyance to reign in the amount of conceitedness Chanyeol could notch under his belt for this (though he did suppose that a big head came with the territory of being a god, regardless). Truthfully, he loved that Chanyeol took so much pride in making him feel good. As if he mattered, as if he were worthy. It was the first time anyone had paid so much attention to his own pleasure and it was overwhelming and impossible at that moment to admit aloud how much it meant to him. 

So he looked on skeptically, scoffing and huffing and doing his best bit to act unamused but if the god pried any harder Jongin might have fallen to bits out of the surreality of it all. Chanyeol was tapping into a whole gamut of feelings Jongin had never explored. Not out of choice, but because he’d never known their existence. He wanted to bask in the overwhelming feeling of security, the warmth, understanding, the fact of being wanted and protected, like Chanyeol had proven again and again in such little time. If he kept going at this rate, Jongin would fall into disarray and never come out of it. 

Their laughter and ribald raillery continued into the clearing at the end of Chanyeol’s abode where the shroud of Chanyeol’s lush garden gave to barren, misted woods gripped in winter’s miserly clutch. Or, what it was supposed to be. Chanyeol came to an abrupt halt, Jongin almost went flying to the ground. 

“Chanyeol? Chanyeol, what is it?” 

Chanyeol was not listening. He was gaping as he spun around on the spot, brisking forward a short distance, spinning around again, and repeat. 

“Chanyeol!” 

_“A rúnsearc,_ open your eyes! What do you see?” he stared like he’d been blinded and regained sight. 

“Trees…?” Jongin said, uncertain. 

“What else?” Chanyeol was crackling with energy, squeezing Jongin so tight it almost cut off his air. 

“And… bushes? Flowers?” 

“Precisely.” the god said, struck. 

The woodland was… denser and particularly vibrant, lush as if Chanyeol’s enchantment had spilled over from his abode. And that was peculiar because… 

“It’s not time yet,” Jongin breathed. 

The woodland was in full bloom and Imbolc was half a moon away. The barren trees were heavy with sweeping boughs of exuberant green. Lords-and-ladies splashed colour like ripened rubies and close by clusters of guelder-roses grew like large fluffy nacres. Beneath them Chanyeol crushed primroses underfoot, which spread as far as they could see. Sage wood and violets shot up through brushes and the air was redolent with moss, juniper and honeysuckle. All around them was birdsong, buzzing and chirping. Swallowtails, red admirals and morphos fluttered and glided serenely onto Chanyeol’s antlers and Jongin’s hair like vivid gossamer crowns. 

“No,” Chanyeol agreed as Jongin looked around them in awed bewilderment. “It is far, far too early. How marvelous.” 

“But-but how?” Jongin looked back to Chanyeol who was already staring at him. 

“You.” Chanyeol said simply. 

“Me?” 

“Yes, you.” Chanyeol nodded, gathering Jongin closer, resting their heads together. “I have restored the Bloom every single year without fail. The single factor that has changed is you, Jongin.” 

“But you cannot be certain—” 

“No,” Chanyeol shook his head, “I can. The Season’s rite can only be completed with a partner that bears the Gifts. I have not lain with anyone other than you since my return. It is you, Jongin. You bear the Gifts.” he insisted, visage shining. 

“I— then _we_ did this.” Jongin was short of breath, dizzy with incredulity. How could this be? 

“Yes,” a voice joined them, “you both did this.” 

If a bloom could instantly be reversed, it would have happened then. He knew that voice, that ice cold scratch that made his blood turn and freeze. The fear was visceral and instantaneous. 

His legs were unsteady as Chanyeol set him down and took a step in front, shielding him. Loerae suddenly appeared at Jongin’s side and at that moment, he felt marginally safer; the memory of what it had done for him last time surfacing. The serpent appeared in its full terrifying glory, reptilian eyes blood red, unlike Jongin had ever seen before, ram horns thicker and taller, body endless and poised up straight, meeting Jongin’s waist. It wrapped a scaly tail around Jongin’s calf, in possession or protection, he didn’t know, but it was strangely comforting. 

“Mor.” Chanyeol said, tone instantly deeper, cautioning. 

“Ah. My bandit, my traitor. There you are.” 

“We had an agreement.” 

“That was before you went and whored with that pathetic human. This is unnatural. Must I be the one to tell you?”

“It’s not unnatural. It means he is Gifted.” Chanyeol gritted out. 

“By whom? By what?” 

She smiled a lot more than last time, Jongin noted, and it unsettled him to the core. 

“If anything we should be inspecting him. Or other circumstances of this early Bloom. Something is not right.”

“I gave you the land you asked for. You agreed he is mine now. Your ire at me is warranted but Jongin has no part in this.” Chanyeol had taken on a pacifying angle, hand held up in admission and truce. 

“Really?” the goddess sauntered forward. Loerae tightened on Jongin’s calf and its fangs elongated until the pointy tips emerged from its mouth. “Would he right this, given the chance?”

“I already gave you what you want.” Chanyeol said heatedly. He seemed to have swollen to a third over his height in the blink of an eye, hands fisted as he took a step forward, “You’ve hurt him enough. You almost _killed_ him. We had—“

“—an agreement, yes. But I was not talking to you, I was talking to the boy.” she stepped out of Chanyeol’s line of sight, standing to the side where she was in clear view of Jongin and vice versa. “Would you do the right thing if I gave you the opportunity?”

“Jongin,” Chanyeol said without turning around. The winds that had earlier sung were now cold and bellicose. A shadow had crept into the woods and the song and vibrancy of earlier was grim and tainted. The sounds of rattlesnakes and hissing and bird screeches like a murder of disgruntled crows rose. “Do not answer. Your word is binding, she will use it against you.”

“Such mistrust amongst friends.” the goddess laughed, “Perhaps this might assist you. I was to take one person from your tuath, in which was given to me freely. Since you have both decided to try and play me like a harp, I will have your entire village, boy, every last one of them, if you do not surrender yourself.”

“No.” Chanyeol said immovably. 

“What will stop me?” she taunted, inching closer, terrible chain-whip of hers hissing through the air. 

“A mere sacrifice cannot be this important to you. You won’t do this.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. He is meaningless to me. But _you,”_ her face twisted and Jongin detected real hurt there, _“You_ stole from me. _You_ were my friend, not him. You broke my trust. My honour means nothing to you. Had you asked, I would have given him without a second thought. It is time for the consequences. See if I am worth my word by dusk.” With that, she materialized into a dark blur of shadows until that, too, dissipated. 

Chanyeol faced Jongin, appearing more collected than Jongin felt.

“She will not do this.” 

“How can you be certain?” 

“I can stop her.” 

Jongin shook his head, “That is not necessary.” 

Chanyeol bristled. “Do not tell me what is necessary and what is not.” 

“Chanyeol,” Jongin started, reasoning what was so apparent to him was bewildering, “I can’t let all those people die.” 

“They mistreated you, Jongin. They did not want you. They deserve this.” 

Jongin’s breath hitched, his heart began to unravel, “How could you say that?”

“Because _I_ want you!” the god exploded, his coolness vanished. Every vein on him bulged, every fibre of him was poised for combat, poised to pummel the life out of something. Jongin was not afraid but his heart was breaking and there was nothing he could do. 

“Well, you can’t.” he said firmly, as if he had been given all the composition Chanyeol had lost, “You can’t have me. We shouldn’t have done this, from the start. I should not have invoked you. This is my fault, I am sorry.” 

“Hear me, and hear me well, Jongin.” Chanyeol growled, coming closer, “On my mother’s grave, I will fight for you. I will not lose you.” 

“You are not losing me, I am choosing to go.” 

“No, no you are not. Listen—” 

“Chanyeol I will not have blood on my hands!” Jongin blew up. People would die if he did not comply. His mother, his sister, his grandmother, if no one else. He might as well have been the one to go into each of their homes and slice off their heads because that would result directly from an action— or inaction— of his. He had fought his entire life to stay his hand and had been ostracized for it. What had it all been for if he would just go ahead and let something like this happen? 

“And why not?” his lips lifted as if to smile but got stuck in a smirk, his eyes were tinged with red. With disturbed viciousness he avowed, “I will kill them all myself. I’ll get to them before she does. What will she have then?” 

“Chanyeol…” Jongin said in quiet horror. “You said yourself that it is easier to trample the flower than sustain. Well that is what I am doing!” 

That seemed to snap the god out of whatever rage induced bloodlust that ensnared him. 

“I said that no harm would come to you and I meant it.” 

“More harm will come to others if I don’t go.” the power sapped out of Jongin, too and he wanted nothing more than to lie down in the grass and be held until it was time. “This is how it was meant to be. This… this was too good to be true.” he smiled, it ached, “It was always a dream and I slept too long.” 

Chanyeol strode up to his space, grabbed his shoulders and tilted his chin up as he insisted, “You are real, I am real, wanting you… that is real. You cannot leave me now. It is not a decision you have made from choice. I cannot allow it.” 

“Chanyeol.” Jongin said tiredly. He did not have anything else to say. They could argue about it until dusk but unless Chanyeol physically restrained him from leaving, Jongin would do what the goddess wanted. Despite Chanyeol’s anger and apathy towards Jongin’s tuath, Jongin knew that Chanyeol would not do that to him. 

_“A rúnsearc,”_ the god said unsteadily. He’d returned to his less intimidating height, his forehead pressed to Jongin’s and Jongin thought that if gods could cry, he would be seeing amber crystals fall from his eyes then. “I would do anything to keep you, please.” 

It sundered Jongin. 

He brought Chanyeol’s mouth to his in desperation, and when they fell to the grass Jongin welcomed Chanyeol’s heavy form smothering him and when he filled him in one bounds-breaking push he started to cry. They clung to each other, unable to inhale each other as deeply as they liked. Chanyeol picked him up, crushed him to his chest, and they rocked together with Jongin in his lap. 

The grass and the flowers and the berry bushes grew tall and taller around them, until they formed an iridescent dome over them. Butterflies and bees and ladybirds shimmered on the ceiling, foxglove and nightshade, bluebells and dogwood wove through the green like garlands. The leaves murmured and birds twittered from above the dome. It started to shower gently inside it and petrichor and floral fragrance arose with it. 

In the bosom of pleasure, they did not notice until they were almost at the end. 

The Bloom was embracing them. 

“See,” Chanyeol whispered in his ear, “how could nature truly celebrate something unnatural?” 

And Jongin’s heart broke all the way. He was terribly in love.

☽*☾

When light started to drain from the sky, they made their way to the site of the sacrifice. They went close but silent, all that was needed to be said had been said. Dusk had come much too quickly. Ironically dusk in Yule had always been Jongin’s favourite. It was the time they could throw down their tools and gather around a warm fire and listen to Maimeó’s riveting stories. What he would give to hear her tell one last story. 

For half the day Chanyeol had spent teaching Jongin runes and invocations of defence and combat, the plants that made the best healing tinctures for different ailments and how to avoid damning himself with his own tongue; _part of her is war and death but her conquest of souls begins with the tongue,_ Chanyeol had warned. As if Jongin had needed any more reason to be terrified but he appreciated that Chanyeol was giving him every advantage he could gain without violating his decision and preventing him from going.

The rest of the day had been spent in telling each other stories. Making love. Telling each other stories while they made love. Telling stories as they held one another for dear life. For little lapses in time they were able to forget about the looming deadline and laugh like eternity was theirs. 

It was not. 

The reminder crept in too often and each time it broke Jongin anew. They held each other closer when it did. Chanyeol wiped away his tears and pleaded with him to let him do something, to try and regnogatie with the goddess again but Jongin did not give. Chanyeol had tried one final time as they made their way and it was the closest Chanyeol had gotten to breaking him. 

_“It is not too late.”_

_“I have made my choice.”_

_“I know.”_ Chanyeol sighed deeply, _“I will come. If you call again, I will come. Whenever you do, be it hundreds of years from now, I will be there.”_

Emotion welled up inside Jongin. _“Chanyeol.”_ he whimpered. 

The god reached for his hand and intertwined their fingers to give them a squeeze. _“Be well, a rúnsearc. Be fierce, be you, as I know you are.”_

 _“Chanyeol.”_ he was tearful again. 

_“Hm?”_

_“You are making this so hard.”_

Chanyeol smiled disarmingly. _“Did I not say I would not give you up without a fight?”_

_“The only one present here to be fought is me.”_

_“Shall we ‘fight’? One last time, hm?”_ he peered down at Jongin with mischief and Jongin laughed shakily. 

_“You said that twenty times before the last time you really meant it.”_

_“I did not mean it any of the times. If it were in my hands ‘last time’ would be only mean ‘right now’. You are immaculately divine, a rúnsearc.”_

Jongin swallowed the lump. _“You will get others.”_

 _“Do not speak to me of others.”_ Chanyeol said sharply, fingers tightening slightly on Jongin’s. 

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“No, my dear one.”_ he sighed again with incredible heaviness, _“You have a noble heart and that is the best and bravest heart amongst all.”_

In a small voice, on the verge of crumbling and begging Chanyeol to take them back to his home, Jongin said, _“I will think of you, always.”_

_“And I you, a rúnsearc, and I you.”_ he brought up their hands and kissed Jongin’s knuckles. 

The clearing was empty when they got there and dusk was setting in fast. Chanyeol turned him into his embrace as they waited, murmuring from the top of Jongin’s head whether Jongin remembered everything Chanyeol taught him. There was nothing to do but wait. Each step of the way the trees had bowed lower as if bidding him farewell and all the woodland creatures had lingered nearby. Chanyeol had told him their senses were keener than others believed them to be and they picked up on energy and auras in a way other sentient beings rarely did. 

Would there be animals and greenery where the goddess would take him? Would he ever get to plant again? The wormwood seeds and everything else Chanyeol had given him were safe in the pockets of the fine clothes Chanyeol had procured. Among the new gifts had been a small carved stag head tied to a leather string, now sitting proudly around his neck. But would he ever get the opportunity to use them? It was another degree of heartbreak and sadness. 

Smoke wafted into Jongin’s nose in the crisp air. He hugged Chanyeol harder, drowning the acute yearning. Chanyeol replied with a squeeze on his nape. 

The yelling came shortly after, distant first until it was louder and cacophonous. Then alarm bells went off clamorously and did not stop. Chanyeol and Jongin pulled back, scanning each other’s faces before they accepted the dreadful notion they were both thinking. 

They took off in a run until the god swung Jongin up onto his back and sprinted at an unearthly speed. 

A burning wall of orange met them where Jongin’s village was supposed to be. It was a disarray of cries, shouts for help, stampede trying to escape and people carrying buckets of water that did nothing to diminish the taking blaze. 

“Help them!” Jongin yelled as he leapt off Chanyeol’s back and went in search of his family. No one noticed him, the boy who was supposed to be dead. He caught glimpse of the druids and their tall hoods standing outside the homes of the more prominent members of the tuath. Anger spiked through him but he kept moving, close to the roundhouse he grew up in. 

“Maimeó!” he yelled as his grandmother came into view. A child was tugging on her hand, screaming its head off while she coughed and staggered. “Maimeó!” he got to her as she collapsed, face coated in a layer of black. 

“Is there anyone left inside?” he shouted over the din at the child and after the child shook her head he grabbed her hand and set off as fast he could with his grandmother in his arms. His grandmother had always been a spry and nimble thing, even in old age but weaving through the pandemonium made the challenge of getting to the other end of the village that seemed to be clear of smoke a perilous and near impossible feat. 

He chanted a prayer under his breath for his grandmother, hoped the healers could do something that would make her open her eyes. She, Ma and Síne were the only reasons he had not become an outlaw and look what he got them. The shame almost toppled him but he had to keep going. 

Hands curled around his ankles as he moved and almost tripped him, badly burnt victims begging him to end their agony if he had a shred of humanity. Shaken, nauseous and wide eyed he kept going. The child, Briga, kept up well but then she was always a zesty one. The black dust and dirt covering her face had made her look like a stranger but once he heard her voice directing him in avoiding upcoming obstacles he recognized her for the neighbour’s child that she was.

They were almost there when the sky rumbled and crackled and a downpour opened up. The sky in the fields past the village were dark but clear of clouds and with a surge of gratitude Jongin realized it was Chanyeol’s doing. 

The marketplace which had been on the opposite end of where the fires took hold was crowded with survivors. The injured were spread out on the ground, others tending to them, drawing water, handing out cloths, salves, hides, tinctures. Others rocking back and forth, chanting prayers, crying, pleading with the gods and wondering what crimes they committed for this punishment. Shame as big as a boulder bubbled in Jongin’s throat and he tuned them out to get someone for Maimeó. 

“Help!” he shouted, “Help, I don’t think she’s breathing!” 

Briga ran and tugged on the hand of a woman in front of them. 

“Briga _a leanbh,_ are you hurt?” the woman said when she turned around and spotted Briga. It was Cathleen, one of the Elder healers. 

“Maimeó! Maimeó!” Briga shouted at her, pointing in Jongin’s direction. 

Cathleen hurried to them and directed Jongin to lay Maimeó down. 

“Will you be able to help her?” he asked after setting her down as gently as he could on the wicker stretcher. 

“Stop asking me daft questions and make yourself useful, boy. Go and get—” she broke off in the middle of telling him off, eyes wide, body stiff like she’d been struck by lightning. 

“Jongin?” 

Oh, the jig was up. 

“Help her Cathleen,” he pleaded, trying to snap the woman out of her shock, “please.” 

“What— how— weren’t you… unless… oh goodness, you’re a demon. Anlon! Amer! Anlon!” she screeched for the High Druid and the frenzy came to a disorienting pause. 

“Look! Look! It’s a demon! It tried to burn us down! Look how it took Jongin’s form! Evil is here!” 

A gasp and murmur went through the repurposed marketplace. Jongin was seized before he had a chance to open his mouth. 

“Wait!” he tried to say. But of course they would think he was being impersonated by a demon, he was supposed to be dead. 

“Tie it up! Tie it up!”

“Get Anlon! Where is Anlon!” 

“Gods have mercy!” 

“Gods protect us!” 

“We have been forsaken!” 

The cries of alarm and despair came in waves. He tried to resist but it earned him two hefty boots in the ribs and Jongin thought better about it. They tied him to a pole left from a stall that was not cleared away. Dismay and fresh fear tore through Jongin. They would torch him alive, if they were kind.

“Greetings.” the goddess appeared out of shadows and smoke in the midst of the crowd. Terror spread as she was perceived and the throng parted for her as if she were a curse. She stopped a few paces short of Jongin, indifference in her tone as she said, “Good, you are here. I am quite tempted to let these savages serve you their own flavour of justice.” 

“I was coming to you!” the frustration, shame and injustice had come to an overwhelming head, “Why have you done this?” Jongin demanded.

“I wanted to. I could. How is that for not keeping my word?” the goddess smiled and a few people dropped to the ground like flies. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“As you should be.” she crept closer and Jongin’s heart hammered louder. This was it. What he had tried to prevent had taken place and he did not even have the comfort of knowing he could be with Chanyeol for it.

As though summoned by Jongin’s thoughts, a ripple went through the sea of people. Out of them appeared the Lord of the Wood and he strode to take a stance in front of Jongin. A murmur louder than the one before rose and the terrified chanting of prayers grew louder and desperate. Chanyeol caught Jongin’s eyes before he turned and despite the fate that was about to be sealed, the sight of the god eased Jongin’s fright and filled him with a measure of priceless warmth.

“I think it is time for you to go.” 

“I will decide that.” 

Jongin could not see over the shoulder of the giant god but he could picture her crystal cut shrug. 

“What else do you want Mor?” 

“Oh, just what I deserve. The boy and everyone else here.” 

“Impossible. Do not make me do this.” 

“Do what? _Steal_ them all? Again?” she laughed and like before, the sound would have formed a layer of ice on his skin if it could. 

“Free him, let him come to me.” 

“No.” 

It took a moment to register that the refusal had not come from Chanyeol or Jongin himself. 

“No?” 

“No.” the voice replied. 

All at once the dread from earlier paled in comparison as if it were meaningless to begin with. No. _No._ What was she doing? What was his sister doing! 

“Cha— my lord,” Jongin said urgently, catching himself before he revealed Chanyeol’s secret in front of the mass, “my lord, untie me!” 

“And why is that?” he heard the goddess ask as Chanyeol went behind him, keeping his eyes on his deity friend as he went. 

“Because you will have me.” Síne walked within arms reach of the goddess. Jongin was watching his sister die before his eyes.

“Síne!” he tried but neither his sister nor the goddess were paying him any mind. 

“Who are you?” 

“Síne. I know what you want. I will give it to you.” Síne’s voice rang out clear and steady, and if Jongin thought his sister had a death wish, he’d say she carried a hint of challenge with her.

“And pray,” the goddess’s boredom had transformed to interest. Jongin did not like how she was eyeing Síne one bit, “how does a lowly human know anything about my wishes?” 

There was a unified gasp as Síne started walking and kept going until she was directly in front of the goddess. She leaned up to her ear and whispered something for a few aeon-long seconds. Before she had finished, the goddess’s hurricane eyes were sparkling, a smile lopsided her lips. 

“I see.” she said, appraising Jongin’s sister with fresh eyes, “In that case you may have yourself a deal.” she caressed Síne’s cheek with a knuckled finger, “What do they call you?” 

“Síne.” 

Jongin was freed at least. “Síne, no!” he lunged for her but he was gripped by the shirt and pulled into caging arms. 

“Brother.” Síne turned around. Her smile was resigned, serene. Her green eyes were charged with so many emotions but most of all there was an appeal. “It will be alright.” she nodded in her succinct and simple way. 

“Come along now, Síne Braveheart. Our journey awaits.” she took Síne’s hand and without a glance at anyone else, in smoke and shadows they were gone. 

Chanyeol turned him around as soon as they were gone and crushed him to his chest. 

“Jongin are you alright, are you alright?” he whispered over and over, roaming Jongin’s body for wounds and bruises. Jongin could only nod and hold on silently, a void opening up inside. He could not believe Síne just sacrificed herself like that for him. It was supposed to be him. It was supposed to him. She should not have been anywhere near the goddess. 

“It is not your fault,” Chanyeol was saying, stroking his back. He was wrong, Jongin could not listen. 

“Jongin,” Chanyeol said softly, “if I am right about where she has taken your sister then no harm will come to her, she will live well. It is not your fault, _a rúnsearc._ Please do not blame yourself.” 

“You are sure Síne will be alright?” 

“Yes. In fact when Mor has had her time to cool off, I can take you to see her.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes.” 

“Ch— my lord… thank you.” 

“No need for that, dear one.” he pressed a firm kiss to Jongin’s forehead, prying another round of gasps. Chanyeol lifted his head and addressed the watching mass. “I am sorry you have suffered this loss today. Do not despair. You will be compensated. I will tend to your wounded and we will help you rebuild.” 

He squeezed Jongin’s shoulder and every dream that had shattered that day pieced back together almost wholly. They got to work, leaving the questioning for later when the worst of the repairs had been seen through. In the morning they woke to a phenomenon that no one could make sense of. 

Gorse and wormwood had flowered everywhere. 

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this author has a very very very acute phobia of snakes in which even the mention of them makes her lose sleep. was this cathartic? we may never find out as i'm still not willing to ever be within ten miles radius of that demon reptile thing! (in short, no it was not) (but i wrote this anyway c: )
> 
> i would apologize for coming out of my college enforced hiatus with this bizarre kinkiness but i am not in the least sorry. i've been dy**ing to experiment with cernunnos in a fic and i don't think this is the last of celtic forest god chanyeol we'll see. (it is for this au tho, let them love for eternity in peace). also, sorry to my celtic civ professors for how much liberty i took in this fic lmao i promise i know my shit better than when i started this fic :')
> 
> anyhow that's enough of my rambling. please let me know what you thought about this, was it your cup? would you like to see more celtic lore from me? lmk!
> 
> take care loves, thank you for reading and sticking this out and if you want to have a chat about anything, come visit me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/miraclesnapril) or [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/miraclesnapril). slán go fóill! ♡


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